


Anslem

by Macedon



Series: Jeu-Parti [3]
Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Alternate Universe, Future Fic, M/M, Mental Illness, Original Characters - Freeform, POV Original Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 1997-05-03
Updated: 1997-05-03
Packaged: 2017-10-09 07:05:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 48,424
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/84345
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Macedon/pseuds/Macedon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eleven years after his abrupt, late-night departure, Salene reappears in Jake's life.  He finds a twenty-nine-year-old Jake whose writing career is beginning to blossom even while his private life is falling apart.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. I

**Author's Note:**

> When reading, please take into account that this was penned during the fifth season of DS9. Assume Jadzia never died, although she is mentioned only in passing. Also, despite Picard's comments in "First Contact," we have assumed there is some form of financial compensation in the Federation. Frankly, anything else makes no economic sense.
> 
> Additional author's note: This story was conceived at the same time as "Eye of the Storm"—months before the theater release of "Shine." Similarities are coincidental.
> 
> Acknowledgements to Margaret Wander Bonanno for her novel, DWELLERS IN THE CRUCIBLE, from which we have borrowed certain details. "The Road Less Taken" is the work of Robert Frost, and "Ozymandias" the work of Percy Bysshe Shelley.
> 
> Originally posted at the [Trekiverse](http://trekiverse.org/efiction/viewstory.php?sid=4885) archive.
> 
> DISCLAIMER: Paramount owns all rights to DS9 series characters herein; Margaret Wander Bonanno has rights to the character of Sethan; all original characters are the property of the authors. Resemblance to any individual, living or dead, is purely coincidental. This is a nonprofit work of fanfiction.

Snow whispered where it touched. If he listened hard enough, he could hear it tell him secrets. Flakes clung to his cloak: delicate white stars making obscure constellations on a black void of wool. They fell in his hair, on his eyelashes, tickled his nose and cheeks. He had long ago lost any sensation in fingers and toes and the tips of his ears.

On the horizon, the sun rose. Yellow-white G2 star. He had always found the quality of Earth's sunlight all wrong. It fell too bright on eyes—desert-evolved or not—which were accustomed to the orange cast of a K1 star. Shadows cut sharp.

There were no shadows now. The sky was slate grey, snow grey. Like his thoughts.

He clutched the book—a real book of paper and cardboard backing—more tightly under his arm. The plastic in which he had wrapped it made a crinkling sound. His attention centered on a child swaddled in pink like a stuffed pillow; she waded knee-deep in drifts and squealed in delight, mittened hands threw up puffs to scatter down around her. She was coming dangerously close to a cord of wood stacked beside the house.

"Jenny Gwen!"

Her father set aside the snow shovel with which he had been shoveling the walkway, retrieved her and raised her high on one shoulder to carry her back with him. She was small. The watcher in the street knew she would be three years old with the next Earth month. Her father went back to shoveling. The child returned to waddling in his wake, pouncing on snow mounds and pulling them down, obliterating the path he had just made neat. He turned, saw what she had done and set down the shovel with a solid plunk. "Jenny! No!"

She just laughed, grinning up at him defiantly from the opening of her parka hood.

It was the child who saw the watcher first.

 

 

He had been observing for twenty-seven minutes. Having come this far, he now stood irresolute fifteen meters away in the middle of the street. Two words on the inside of a book cover had brought him:

> "To Salene"

To be dedicatee of a book was a singular honor. But for him to be dedicatee of a book by this particular author with whom he shared such a painful past was a bafflement. A puzzle. It demanded an answer. Maybe the author had known that. But why now? After eleven years, why bait the trap now? Not that he had responded immediately. The book under his arm had been in print six Terran months, seven days. A series of events in his own life had been necessary before he could bring himself to make this journey.

Now he stood fifteen meters from Jake Sisko, who had squatted down to speak to his daughter. He wondered for perhaps the hundredth time how to approach this remeeting.

The child solved the problem. Pointing directly at him over her father's shoulder, he heard her say clearly, "Somebody's watching us, Daddy!" And she waved at him, little mittened hand wobbling up and down rapidly. "Hi!"

Not knowing what else to do, he raised his own hand in return. At that moment, Jake twisted to look. Letting go of his daughter, he stood slowly—or perhaps Salene's mind just cast everything over the next few seconds in slow motion. Jake walked down the path toward the street, stopped an arm's length away as if not trusting himself to come within striking range. For a long moment, they stared.

Age had defined the lines of Jake's face, reminding Salene how brief ran the span of human years. Jake was a man, his height finally grown into, the roundness gone from his shoulders, his chest filled out. He was big, bigger than his father. He did not slouch where he stood any longer. Yet he was still beautiful: that rare purity of profile which carried no false feature, no blemish but the small freckle on his right eyelid. Salene had always thought that freckle saved him from insipidity.

Yet what shocked Salene more than any physical change in Jake, what nearly sent him reeling back, was the sudden pulsing sense of Jake's presence. The bond. It was still there.

Well, what did you expect?, he asked himself sarcastically.

He thought even Jake might have felt something because he frowned slightly and shook his head, then looked back up at Salene, opened his mouth, shut it.

The child picked that moment to interrupt. She had waddled down the path while the two of them had stood staring stupidly at one another; now she walked right up to Salene, tugged on his cloak. He glanced down into the little face, into eyes that muddy-green color which sometimes turned up in children of mixed parentage. She asked, "Who're you?"

"Jenny Gwen—let him go!"

He looked back at her father. Jake had come a few steps forward. "I will not have her for breakfast."

"I didn't think you would." Jake's tone ran cold with all the unspoken accusations of eleven years. "I just didn't want her to force any unwanted human feelings on you."

Such bitterness! Not undeserved. Salene met Jake's eyes for a moment, then squatted down to face Jake's daughter. "My name is Salene."

"Sa-lene," she repeated and smiled at him. She had her father's sweet smile and probably his fine bone structure, though under cheeks still plump with baby-fat, it was hard to tell. Her skin was Vulcan teak, a little darker than his. The hazel eyes were her most striking feature. He wondered what her mother looked like. Sarah Fernandez. It was only a name from the About the Author note in Jake's book: "Jake Sisko lives in Bellefonte, Pennsylvania, Earth, with his wife, Sarah Fernandez, their daughter Jennifer Gwendolyn, three cats and one newt."

The wind blew his hair and the child noticed his ears, walked around his side to inspect them more closely, then reached up a mittened finger to touch the left one. Salene saw Jake tense. "They are supposed to be that way," he told her.

Though her hands had a child's awkwardness, she was very careful as she explored the ear, then moved around to touch his eyebrow. Like all children, the differences fascinated her. Her little face was pinched with perplexity. "I am a Vulcan," he said.

She repeated that, too. "Vul-can." Then she grinned, as if delighted by something. "Pointy ears!" And she broke into giggles.

"Jenny Gwen!" Jake snapped.

Salene raised a hand, shook his head. "It is all right. She means no insult by it."

"I like them!" she said as if agreeing, though he doubted her vocabulary included 'insult' yet. She looked up at her father, smiled. Jake sighed and let it go. Salene suspected the child had already learned that her smile could excuse a multitude of sins. She was utterly charming; it devastated him. Here was what he could never have given Jake Sisko.

"What are you doing here?" Jake asked him then.

Salene stood, pulled the book out from under his arm. The title showed clearly through the transparent plastic. ANSLEM. "This."

Jake glanced from book cover to Salene's face. "It's been out a while."

"Indeed. And to great critical acclaim—as it deserves. I understand that it was nominated for the Baytaw Prize? You finally discovered what to do with the characters."

"I had help. Somebody pointed me in the right direction eleven years ago."

Salene removed the book, opened it to the dedication page, read: "'In loving memory of my mother, Jennifer Martin Sisko; and to Salene, for a clear eye, tactful honesty, and no compromises.' I am...deeply honored, Jake." Closing the book, he looked up. "But this was undeserved by me. It was a long time ago. You have matured greatly as a writer, and this story has changed profoundly from the version I read. I do not believe I contributed much to it, in its final form. So—I must confess myself perplexed by the dedication."

Jake had listened quietly while his daughter wound round and round his legs, as if he were a living Maypole. The adults might have their conversation but she would be sure she was noticed. Now, Jake smiled bitterly—an expression new to his face since Salene had known him—and said, "It's a writer's prerogative to dedicate his book to who he wants."

"Agreed. But is it not equally the prerogative of the dedicatee to inquire as to the reasons?"

"You came a long way to ask why."

I had ghosts to face, Salene almost said, but closed his lips on it: a metaphor more suited to Jake than to him. Instead, he replied, "I did not think a letter would do."

"You thought a letter was good enough for goodbye."

Only thirty-three years of ingrained control saved Salene from wincing visibly. "That was...one of the more short-sighted acts of my life."

Before Jake could reply, the child piped up. "I'm cold! We go *in* now!"

Jake lifted her onto his hip, then turn back to Salene. "If you came sixteen lightyears to ask why, I guess I can give you coffee. Come on." Turning, he started up the walk. Salene followed, snow swirling around him.

 

The house smelled of pine from a tree in one corner. A tree in the house? Ah. He had forgotten the month: late December. Christmas had just passed in most of Western and parts of Eastern Earth.

Red and blue decorations enlivened a dark wood sitting-room. The place had a rustic air. A fire burned in an archaic cast-iron stove. Salene moved towards it, felt his extremities tingle as they revived. A pot of water sat steaming on top. "Why is there water on top of your stove?" he asked, turning. Jake's daughter had gone tearing off up the staircase while Jake stood in the kitchen, pouring real-brewed coffee into two cups on the breakfast bar. The kitchen was fully-appointed. Jake must still cook.

"The water humidifies the air. Otherwise it gets dry in here with the stove going."

"Where did you find such an antique?"

"I didn't. Sarah did. Antiques are her hobby, though she took most of the smaller ones with her."

Salene blinked. "Took them with her?"

Jake brought over the coffee, set it in front of Salene. "Take off your cloak. There are hooks on the wall by the door." Salene did so, hung it beside the tiny pink coat which belonged to the child.

He turned back then, let his eyes take in his surroundings with more care: a sofa, a chair with a cat sprawled in it, a pair of lamps, a bookshelf with real books beside the staircase, a half-full fishtank with algae all over the sides. The newt? Otherwise, the room was strangely bare. Christmas decorations, shoes, and scattered toys had initially hidden that fact. He saw a man's things; he saw a child's things. He did not see anything recognizably a woman's. "Where is your wife, Jake?"

A long pause. Jake wasn't looking at Salene. "We've separated."

At the base of his spine, Salene experienced a shivery burst that flashed weakness down his legs and spread out low in his abdomen. He did not have a name to put to the sensation. It kept him silent for ten breaths, then he asked, "How long?"

"Four months."

Salene sat down across from the man who had once been—and still was in his own heart—his dearest friend. "I am sorry."

Jake looked up. "Really?" His tone made the question sardonic, not curious.

"Yes. Really."

The child's return interrupted any reply Jake might have made. She gallumped down the stairs, a large stuffed animal in her arms—some marine mammal. Salene was not well-versed in Earth's flora and fauna. Coming over to him, she pushed the nose of the animal right up against his face. "She kiss you!" The timing was bad; he twisted away almost violently.

"Jenny!" Jake said. "Come here!"

"Jake, forgive—"

"Shut up, Salene." But Jake was looking at his daughter; she glared back, then reluctantly approached. He caught her between his knees, took the stuffed animal out of her hands and set it on the floor. She reached for it but he had scooted it well out of reach. "Jenny. Jenny Gwen, look at me. Do you have your listening ears on?" Giving up on the toy, she raised her face and made an odd popping sound with her mouth. "Use person talk, Jenny, not newt noises. Do you have your listening hears on?"

Dropping her chin, she said sullenly, "Yes."

"It's not considered polite to touch Vulcans. Mr. Salene has been very patient with you, but it's time now for you to stop. Why don't you go upstairs and play for a while? Daddy wants to have a grownup conversation, okay?"

"No!"

"Jenny Gwen—!"

"No!"

"Jenny, go upstairs. I'm going to count to three. One...."

She did nothing.

"Two...."

She skipped out from between his knees, darted in to snatch the stuffed animal, then backed up a dozen steps, stopped, as if to see if he would make good his threat.

"Two and a half...."

"I go!" And she dashed up the stairs.

When she had disappeared, Salene said, "She lives with you?"

"For the time being. Sarah's on assignment to a new space station. That's what she does: station architecture."

"Then you met on DS9?"

"We met here in Pennsylvania. I was visiting my grandparents. They told me about a local professor who was interviewing people who'd grown up on space stations, for planning research. She wanted to make stations more kid-friendly." Jake shrugged. "I agreed to talk to her. Turned out, she'd grown up on one, too. We had some things in common. She asked me out and we started seeing each other. After a while, I asked her to marry me." Jake looked off. "It's not the stuff of exciting novels, I'm afraid."

Salene wanted to ask what had happened to Jake's marriage, but did not feel it his place. Eleven years ago he had given up all right to know about Jake's private life. He sipped his coffee instead and stared at the black iron stove.

Silence stretched. Finally, Jake shifted. "So. How about you? What've you been up to for eleven years?"

It was not sarcastic, or bitter. Just a question posed offhand—like one might ask at a casual meeting between acquaintances. Yet what he and Jake had been to one another.... Salene had come here prepared for anger, for abrupt dismissal, even for cold refusal on Jake's part to acknowledge him. But to be reduced to a mere acquaintance!

It was the perfect cruelty, of course. The perfect revenge. What better way to humiliate a Vulcan than to care less?

Standing, Salene walked away a few steps, moving like a man drunk or disoriented. Finally he looked back at Jake, whose face was nearly blank. He did not even have the good grace to look victorious, which made his victory unassailable.

"What have I been 'up to'? I have eaten out my heart over you. Does it please you to hear it?"

Jake blinked. Salene watched the full impact of his admission register. Blankness disappeared, the eyebrow twitched—almost Vulcan that. There was a pinched look about Jake's mouth. Then he bowed his head and stared hard at the carpet under his feet. "Damn you. You had to push it, didn't you?"

"If the other option was to be treated as if I did not matter—yes."

Jake stood, stalked over to face Salene. "You could have come six months ago. Why didn't you?"

Salene sidestepped that question to re-ask his own. "Why did you dedicate a book to me after eleven years?"

Jake threw up his hands, turned half away. "I don't know! But if you came now, why didn't you come before?" He turned his head to glare. "You want to be treated like you matter, but you don't treat me as if I matter to you!"

"You matter."

"Then why didn't you come?"

It was an accusation, not a question.

"I...did not want to be manipulated."

That shut Jake up. There were tears in his eyes; he had always been emotional. Once, Salene had prized that. "I _needed_ you," Jake said finally.

"I am here." What other response could he have given?

Jake started to move forward, hesitated, faltered, cooled. He waved a hand and turned away again, all the way around. "It doesn't matter. It was a dumb thing to do, the dedication. I didn't have any business doing it; I was just confused. My marriage was falling apart. I don't know what I thought that dedication would accomplish."

The answer seemed obvious to Salene. "You did something you knew I would have to respond to, either to express gratitude or curiosity." He paused, added, "That was why I initially refused to come."

"So why did you, finally? You didn't have to; you made it clear once that you didn't want me around."

Salene paused, thought how to answer. He could sidestep the truth and preserve his pride, but had he wanted to preserve his pride, he would not have come here at all. "It was never a matter of not wanting. It was a matter of choosing between two things I wanted too much."

For a moment, Jake said nothing, clearly taken aback. Then his face shut. "I didn't think Vulcans ever wanted; that's a _feeling_."

Salene looked around himself, anywhere but at Jake. "I feel."

"You said that once, too. I was stupid enough to believe you."

"I did not lie!" It was a snap, no other description for it. Reining his temper, he walked back to the stove. It was hot, like this feeling in his chest. It made his skin tight, made his heart tight. "When I left you, I left my soul."

Behind him he heard clapping, slow and mocking, and spun around. "How _poetic_," Jake said.

To admit to emotion was bad enough. To admit to it and not be taken seriously— He was moving almost before he knew what he was doing. He grabbed Jake by the wrist, jerked him close...and had nothing to say. At the root of it, this wasn't about declarations. Jake had no reasons to believe him. So he leaned in the rest of the way and kissed him. It was brutal. Teeth bruised lips. He had Jake by the nape of the neck. Jake had both hands on his upper arms, to draw him close or shove him away. A wrestling match: each trying to dominate the other on grounds neither had expected but perhaps both had wanted too much. Salene could feel the bond pulsing in his own mind, the wish to link with Jake almost overwhelming—as overwhelming as this intense desire reawakened after long dormancy. They pushed against each other like a pair of phalanxes at the clash of shields.

Jake broke off abruptly, jerked his head around to the stairs. Salene remembered then, too: the child. She was not there. Jake let out a breath, let Salene go. "What in hell was that?" he muttered.

Salene stepped forward again, back into the circle of Jake's personal space—but he kept one eye on the stairs. "Which part? The anger or the desire?"

Jake set a hand on Salene's hip—very carefully, as if he thought Salene might break. "This is insane. It was eleven years ago. I'm not attracted to men. I have a daughter, and a wife, if we can work it out. You have a career, and a family that doesn't want to hear about me."

"All true, if not precisely accurate on the details. Only part of my family would not wish to hear about you."

"Which part?"

"My elder brother."

"You said your family would disown you."

"I was young." And foolish. But he did not add that.

Jake backed up, raised his hands. "This is going too fast. What did you come here for? To disrupt my life again?"

"I told you—I wished an answer regarding the dedication."

"And you got one. My marriage was falling apart. I guess it reminded me of you!"

"You said you needed me."

"I did. Then."

"And now?"

Jake made a helpless gesture. "I don't know! I don't understand any of this! You just...drop back into my life and expect me to take you on faith."

"No, I do not." He wanted to touch Jake again, knew it would be unwise. "I did not intend what just occurred—but I cannot say no part of me had hoped for it."

"What did you think was going to happen if you came here?"

"Honestly? I thought you would not talk to me."

"Despite the dedication?"

"Yes. I simply felt compelled to see you again." He let a faint, bitter smile touch his lips. "The dedication provided an excuse."

"So now what?" Jake asked.

Salene shrugged by way of answer. He really had no idea. He had not thought to get this far. Jake picked up their cups, went back into the kitchen and poured more coffee. He did not look at Salene. "Do you want to stay for lunch? It's still snowing out there."

"Do you wish me to stay?"

"I wouldn't ask otherwise!"

"Then I will stay."

 

 

It was a strange afternoon. Not comfortable. After lunch, the child was put down for a nap. She went reluctantly, might not have gone at all had Salene not promised a song. She was fascinated by him. And he was fascinated by her, by the sheer fact of her. Jake's child. That she was charming and apparently clever for her age only added to the effect. When she was finally asleep, he came back downstairs. Jake sat in the near-empty dining room on the other side of the kitchen, staring out the front bay window at the snow coming down in the street. His feet were up on the sill and he had a steaming cup of coffee in his hands. There was a second chair for Salene. "I did not think you particularly cared for coffee," Salene said by way of greeting, took the chair.

"Started drinking it at the Pennington Academy in New Zealand, but I didn't actually get to like coffee till I lived in Rome a few years. They know how to make real coffee in Italy; they roast the beans, not burn them."

"What were you doing there?"

"Going to school."

"In Italy, not New Zealand?"

"I stayed at Pennington two years. I guess I learned something." He took a sip of coffee. "That's not fair. I did learn something, but I learned more outside classes than in them. I decided I'd do better with a degree in something else. If all you study is writing, you have nothing to write _about_. So I travelled for a few years—all Earth's important old cities left standing after the Third Word War. I went to Leningrad, Calcutta, Nairobi, Istanbul, Mexico City, Cairo, Athens, Barcelona, Venice, Casablanca. Quite a list, huh? And those are just the ones I remember off the top of my head." He grinned. "Finally settled in Rome. Took comparative literature there, with a year at Cambridge after. I think I lived in their library—a real one, with real books. It's wonderfully Gothic. Nog thought I was nuts."

"You are still friends with the Ferengi?"

"Nog didn't walk out on me."

Salene rose, stalked away through the kitchen. Behind him, he heard Jake rise also. "Don't leave. I'm sorry."

He stopped but remained turned away towards the sitting room with its stove and denuded Christmas tree. "There is nothing for which you need apologize. You are correct. Nog did not betray his friendship with you. I did."

"I never understood why. I read the note you left, but couldn't you just have _told_ me those things? Did you really think I'd be so selfish I wouldn't let you set whatever limits you needed to?" A hesitation. "I'd have taken you on any grounds you named. You were my friend first."

"You still do not understand, do you? It was never you I did not trust! It was myself." He turned a little to stare at a neat line of canisters on the cabinet until his eyes went out of focus. "You were the unwitting victim of my own weaknesses. That is why I left. I would not victimize you further."

"Couldn't you let me decide for myself? If you'd talked to me—"

"I'd never have been able to leave you."

"That was the idea, dammit!" Frustrated, Jake threw his coffee cup. It crashed against the wall, the last dregs of coffee streaking brown on white. Being plastic, the cup itself did not break but the sound startled them both.

"You're going to wake your daughter."

"No, I won't. A Klingon bird of prey could go screaming through her room at warp nine and it wouldn't wake her." Jake came into the kitchen to grab a rag, dampen it and go back out to wipe up the coffee. Salene followed, picking up the cup where it had bounced away against a baseboard. Jake had finished cleaning up but remained squatting, staring at the wall. "If you had to leave then to 'protect' me, why show up again now? Do you think it's going to hurt less when you leave this time?"

Salene frowned down at the blue plastic of the cup. "Do you wish me to leave?"

"That wasn't what I asked."

"No, but it is what I asked." He walked over to stand next to Jake.

Jake did not look up at him. "You got what you came for—a reason for the dedication."

"Ostensibly."

Jake finally turned up his head. "What are you trying to say?"

Squatting down as well, Salene frowned at the wood floor between his knees. "If you wish me to stay, I will. If you wish me to leave, I will. I did not come intending to cause you pain. I came because I could no longer stay away. My own weaknesses again. But I will not victimize you twice."

"Why don't you show me the respect of letting me decide this time when I'm a victim?"

That made Salene glance up. There was anger in Jake's face, and something else. "I want you to stay," Jake said. "But only if I can trust that you won't disappear on me again. If you can't give me your word, then yeah, I want you to go, and not come back."

"I can give you my word," Salene said solemnly.


	2. II

Jake was working. Again. He had forgotten that it was time to eat. That was a common enough occurrence. Salene set Jenny in her booster seat at the breakfast bar and gave her wheat crackers to keep her busy, walked down the hall to bang on Jake's office door. Again. "Jake."

"Yeah, yeah—I'm coming. Just let me finish this thought."

"You said that five minutes ago."

"I'll be there in a minute!"

Snorting softly, Salene went back to the kitchen. After three months, he knew the routine: he would feed Jenny, eat something, then Jake himself would finally appear half an hour from now, looking shamefaced and offering apologetic variants on, "I got involved." Sometimes Salene wondered how Jake had survived alone with Jenny before he had arrived. When writing, Jake lived in his own world—especially now as he fought to complete his second novel. But Salene understood that kind of obsession.

"At least you don't yell at me," Jake had said, a month after Salene had moved in. "Sarah thought marrying a writer would be romantic, but she never understood. Since I was home all day, why couldn't I run errands for her, watch Jenny, whatever? Then she bitched when I wrote at night because I was busy all day. 'You never spend any time with me!'" It was one of the few times Jake had said anything about the reasons for his separation from Sarah. Salene had never asked more.

His current arrangement with Jake was ephemeral. It continued to exist because they refrained from imposing the past or future on it. After that first day, Jake never again asked Salene if he was staying, or for how long, or what had become of his career. Once, he had asked—almost casually—when Salene's next tour was scheduled. "I am on indefinite leave," Salene had replied. That had ended it. Yet Salene never left the house without telling Jake precisely when he would return and then keeping to that even if it meant cutting short a trip.

They did not sleep together, nor touch at all except by accident. Jake appeared unaware of the bond between them; Salene was too aware of it, and reluctant to tell Jake. Eleven years ago, it had seemed the right thing to do: his private gift. Now he saw it differently: a violation, a link put there unasked. And so for the moment, their unofficial arrangement continued. Jenny had accepted his presence in their lives; Jake had come to rely on him, if not completely forgive him; one of the cats had adopted his feet at night. His package mail was being forwarded here, and his younger brother Solymi was gradually shipping items from his apartment in T'lingShar. Even the neighbors had gathered that he was more than a mere visitor.

He also knew it could not last much longer. They were living in Never-Neverland—but that morning, he had seen Jake flipping through his financial record, and frowning. Jake was not wealthy. In fact, Salene had been appalled by how little Jake was paid for his efforts. Though they lived frugally enough, the advance for Jake's second book was nearly gone, that for a third still in negotiation. Sarah paid the mortgage. The house had been Jake's idea—"I never had a house, growing up"—but he could not afford it. Sarah was continuing the mortgage payments until she returned and they could decide what to do about the future. Jake seemed to be preparing himself to lose the place; he had spoken of fixing this or that in preparation for putting it on the market.

Salene wondered how he might convince Jake to let him help with expenses; he had more private resources than he knew what to do with. It was illogical to be forbidden to contribute, particularly in light of the fact that he now more or less lived here. In fact, he could buy Jake the house outright, present it as a gift...but did not think that wise. Jake's pride would be wounded. Nevertheless it troubled him deeply to live here at Jake's expense. Sometimes he simply bought things and did not tell Jake.

He fetched peanut-butter-and-banana squares from the replicator, set them in front of Jenny as the comm rang. Without thinking, he walked out into the dining area and flipped the receive. "Yes?"

A woman's face on the screen—startled. He knew instinctively who she was: Sarah Fernandez. Jake's wife. "Who are you?" she demanded. "Where's Jake?"

"Jake is here, writing. Shall I call him?"

She frowned. She was, he supposed, a pretty woman. He might have been jealous, but he was the one standing in her dining room, not her. "Who _are_ you?" she asked again.

"I am a friend. My name is Salene."

"Sal— Not _that_ Salene!"

He wondered what 'that Salene' signified, and how much she knew about him. He was saved from answering by the child. Having heard her mother's voice on the comm, she had abandoned her meal to come screaming out into the dining area. "Mommeee!"

Fernandez' face altered entirely. "Hi, sweetie. Where's daddy?"

"In his office," Jenny said, even as the office door opened and Jake came down the hall. He was frowning. His eyes still had that distracted look he got when he was working.

Salene had stepped back from the comm. Now, he watched Jake confront his wife. "Sarah?"

There was a long pause while they studied each other. "The project is done," she said. "I'm coming home."

"When?" Jenny shouted, gripping the edge of the comm desk and bouncing up and down in uncontrollable excitement.

"I'll be there in two weeks."

"Jenny'll be glad to see you."

"Politic phrasing, Jake. I notice you didn't say you would be."

"Sarah—not in front of her." He glanced around for Salene, nodded to his daughter.

Coming forward, Salene knelt beside her. "Come."

"But Mommy—!"

"I'll call you before we disconnect," Jake said. "You can talk to Mommy then."

Salene took her upstairs to work on a puzzle. In the distance, he could hear the rise and fall of Jake's voice, harsh with anger. He was glad human hearing was less accute; the child seemed oblivious. After twenty-two minutes, Jake appeared at the door to Jenny's room. "Jenny Gwen, Mommy wants to say goodbye."

She leapt up and was gone on the instant. She had only been biding her time with Salene anyway, awaiting the chance to talk to her mother. Why did it hurt so much inside, to see how fast she went? He looked at Jake. His friend had been crying but not, Salene thought, in sorrow. "You know," Jake said, "Every time we talk, I remember why she's out there and I'm back here." Salene stood, shyly set a hand on Jake's shoulder. It was the first time they had touched in weeks but Jake turned away. "I need to go; Jenny doesn't know how to disconnect the comm." And he left Salene standing alone in the child's room.

 

 

They did not talk again until Jenny was put to bed, bathed and teeth brushed. She had done nothing but chatter about her mother's imminent return. Salene sang her a lullaby and tried not to allow her chatter to affect him. His reactions were illogical and absurd. She was not his child; it was perfectly natural that she be excited to see her mother again. Nevertheless he stood for a long while in her doorway and watched her sleep. Inside, he was hollow.

Jake came up the stairs, stood beside him. "They're sweet like that, aren't they? Nature's way of making sure their parents don't throttle them for being holy terrors when they're awake, I guess."

Salene shook his head. "She is not a 'holy terror.' She is only a child."

He could feel Jake study him from where he had leaned against the opposite doorjamb. "You love her."

"Her welfare is of concern to me. If you wish to label that 'love', it is your prerogative."

Jake made a sound somewhere between disgust and amusement. "Well the 'concern' is reciprocated. She's very fond of you."

Salene turned away. "Perhaps—the same as she is fond of the cats and the newt and her collection of stuffed animals. She is not my child." And he stamped down the stairs, irritated with himself for being so transparent.

He headed for his room. He would read before he composed himself for meditation and then sleep. Jake followed him, caught him in the hallway. "Hey! What is wrong with you?"

His turn now to jerk an arm free. "Nothing!" He turned away. If he did not, he would shame himself. Jake let him be. Finally he said, "She is not mine. I know this. I do not wish to impose, nor would I ever ask that she chose between her mother and myself."

"Why do you assume she has to?" The unexpected comment brought Salene's head around. Jake continued, "When Sarah and I separated, we promised each other we wouldn't tear Jenny apart between us. If I thought you were trying to turn my daughter against her mother, I'd kick you out of my house. But kids have big hearts, Salene. And as far as she's concerned, you hung the stars."

"Her mother may have other ideas."

Jake did not reply; Salene began to move back towards his room but Jake's hand on his arm stopped him. "We need to talk." Salene halted, kept his face averted but nodded. They did indeed. "Let's go out by the stove. It's cold back here."

Jake heated cider for Salene—real cider made from local apples—then made espresso for himself. Two of the three cats had come over to bump Salene's legs; the grey leapt up into his lap. Absently, he scratched her cheeks and ears.

Putting the cider mug on a table by Salene's chair, Jake said, "Cats and Vulcans are the antithesis of Klingons and tribbles. If there's a Vulcan around, every cat inside a mile comes running."

It was an attempt at small talk to avoid the larger issue. Vulcans were just as prone to it, though they liked to call it something else. "It is our body heat," Salene said.

"Maybe." Jake snorted. "But even Nancy likes you and she's half wild." He nodded to the cat in Salene's lap. "It's more than just higher body temperature."

Salene shrugged. Jake might be correct; he really did not know why Terran cats gravitated to Vulcans—and the reverse. Salene had read somewhere that the Terran domestic cat had recently superseded the sehlat as the most preferred house pet on Vulcan: the only example in the Federation of an introduced animal replacing a native one in popularity. And it had happened in only a hundred Vulcan years. Now, Salene let Nancy's subsonic purr lull him while he waited for Jake to broach more serious matters. But Jake's announcement still caught him by surprise: "Sarah wants marriage counseling."

Salene sat up.

"She seems to think we can fix things," Jake went on, "that we should try for Jenny's sake."

"Indeed, you should try."

Jake stared. "I can't believe you want me to go back to her."

Picking up his mug, Salene turned it in his hands. "Jake, your commitment to Sarah has precedence. You exchanged vows with her, not me. It is your duty not to give up on those vows unless it proves impossible to keep them."

"What if I prefer you?"

Salene set down the mug and stood abruptly, dropping Nancy onto the floor. He stalked over to the sliding glass door which opened onto the back porch, looked out. The back light illumined a line of yellow daffodils in a flower bed by the house. They were just beginning to open their buds. "That is not a reason," he said to Jake.

"Not for a Vulcan maybe—"

Salene spun. "It is not a reason! And you do not prefer me."

"How do you know who I prefer!"

"You are not attracted to men—as you told me yourself."

Jake rose, too, came over to stand in front of Salene. "I'm not attracted to most men, no. But to you?" His eyes flicked over Salene's face. "I don't know. I'd forgotten...." He did not finish the thought. Instead, he said, "Sarah and I ended up in bed the first time we went out. Chemistry. I was drunk on it for over a year. We had great sex. Then I woke up one day and realized I was married to someone I didn't _like_ half the time." He paused, glanced down. "I probably should've asked for a divorce then. I didn't. No Sisko has gotten a divorce in five generations. I thought I was expecting too much, wanting too much in one person, and should settle for something more realistic. Instead, I settled for the wrong things." He looked back up. "Being with you again reminded me what it's like to be understood. I want someone who understands me."

"And so you would sacrifice attraction for understanding. What makes you think the trade would prove more satisfying to you in the end? Choose me because you want me, or let us remain friends."

Jake eyed him. "You told me once that Vulcans didn't marry for love or desire, but now that's what you want from me."

"I could not marry you in any case; that has not changed. Nor does it matter why Vulcans marry—it matters why _humans_ do. You are human. You must choose a mate for human reasons."

"Salene, whatever Vulcans may think, humans aren't slaves to emotion—and chemistry isn't what makes a good marriage. I married Sarah for chemistry, and it wasn't enough. Humans can be as pragmatic as any Vulcan." He grinned. "I _like_ you; that matters more. I enjoy your company, I value your opinion—"

"But you do not desire me. We may as well be roommates."

Jake threw up his hands. "_Why_ are you stuck on that? As for desiring you—you're wrong. I do feel...something. I'm not sure 'desire' is the best word for it, but for eleven years I haven't been able to get you out of my head!"

Jake's phrasing cut off Salene's initial reply. After a moment, Salene asked, "What do you mean you have not been able to get me out of your head?" Surely mind-blind Jake was unaware...? But Jake shrugged, looked embarrassed—as if he had said more than he had meant to. "Explain," Salene prompted.

Jake took a breath, glanced quickly at Salene, then away again. "I've thought of you, off and on, ever since you left—sometimes every day, sometimes not for months. At Pennington, it was bad. Maybe that's why I left school to travel. Dad thought traveling was a good idea. I'd seen so much of other planets, but didn't know squat about my own. But to me, traveling kept me too busy to remember. It worked mostly, till I settled in Rome. Italy reminded me of you, so I left and went to England. Then on a visit to my mother's parents, I met Sarah. She was the first person since you who I felt serious about."

Jake was not answering the question in quite the way Salene had meant, but it was the first time since the day of Salene's arrival that Jake had talked about his past. Occasionally, he had related anecdotes but anecdotes made for spotty illumination. So, fascinated, Salene did not try to redirect him.

"Like I said before, there's really not much to the story." Jake shrugged. "We had good sex, and a similar background; I thought that was enough. So I finished up at Cambridge and we got married. Dad was happy for me; I think Kassidy was less sure, but they've both been pretty good about not trying to run my life." His shoulders sagged. "Everything was fine for a year or so, then I woke up one day and realized I wasn't in love with Sarah, probably never had been. We started fighting—little things at first. Then out of the blue, she suggested that we have a kid; she must have sensed she was losing me. I don't know why I agreed. Maybe I thought a baby would give us more in common, and our parents were ecstatic, so we bought this house and had Jenny. For a while, it did help. But Jenny took a lot of time, and I was the one who bore the brunt of it."

Sighing, he went back over to sit down by the fire. Still silent and listening, Salene followed. "I love my daughter; I wouldn't send her back even if I could. But having a child is supposed to be a partnership, and Sarah always had some project due, or some conference to attend, or had to stay late in the lab. I did the work, though having a baby hadn't been my idea in the first place. I was tired all the time, and resentful."

He picked up a piece of cardboard and fed it to the stove. It was late March and the weather still ran chill enough at night to light a fire. "About a month after Jenny's second birthday, Sarah came home all excited because she had an opportunity not just to design a space station, but actually to oversee the building. Station architects don't always or even often have that chance. To be invited meant a leap in her status in the field.

"But it also meant she wanted to pack us up and go off for six or eight months to live on the edge of Romulan space, half of it spent in pre-station contractor housing. Not very pleasant." He threw another bit of cardboard into the fire. It blazed. "I'd spent enough time on ships and stations, growing up. When we first married, I'd told Sarah I wasn't going to raise a family on a station and she'd agreed. But when this project came up, she kept saying, 'It's only a few months.' Maybe so. A few months this time, a few months next time...and how often would Jenny get to see a real sky and breathe real air? Pretty soon, we'd be bouncing from project to project: building stations or fixing them, or updating old ones. I told her I didn't want to live like that. We had...quite a fight. The only thing we settled was that we needed some time apart. So we decided she'd go alone to the project and I'd stay here with Jenny. I'd just finished ANSLEM. I thought of you all the time then, so I dedicated the book to you. I wasn't sure you'd ever see it, but hoped if you did, you'd come. I needed your logic, or maybe I just needed to see you again and realize you weren't any more perfect than Sarah, so I could forget about you."

Smiling wryly, he looked up. "Trouble is, when you did come, it just convinced me that I'd been right all along: marrying Sarah was a mistake." He shook his head. "I don't want to stay married to her, Salene—and marriage counseling isn't going to change that. The only thing we have in common anymore is Jenny. We haven't even had sex in over a year. There's just..._nothing there_ to save."

Salene slumped back in his chair, tapped fingers on the arm. When Jake had first said that he had not been able to get Salene out of his head, Salene had feared that the bond he had set between them eleven years ago had somehow interfered with Jake's marriage. He was still not entirely sure it hadn't, but after Jake's recitation, he felt somewhat less concerned. Now, he tilted his head slightly. "How much does Sarah know about me? When I answered the comm and gave her my name, she said, 'Not _that_ Salene.'"

Jake appeared amused. "She's jealous because you got a book dedication and she didn't. She doesn't know about New Orleans, if that's what you're asking."

"So what does she know?"

"I told her you were an old friend, and that you'd helped me a lot when I first started writing. She knows 'Orfeo' was written for you, and that you're a famous singer. That's about it."

"And she never asked why we were no longer in contact?"

"I told her we'd drifted apart over the years and I'd lost track of you."

"So you lied. Why?"

Jake shrugged. "I don't know. I never even told my father what happened in New Orleans. He figured out after a while that we weren't writing any more, but he never asked why and I never told. Believe it or not, the only person I ever confided in was Dax. My grandfather guessed, and I think Jillian did, too, but I didn't tell them."

"Jillian knew." Salene flicked his eyes to the fire, narrowed them. "She saw me leaving, informed me I was being 'melodramatic.'"

"Jill never had much patience for anything she considered silly."

"She is wiser than I." He turned back to Jake. "Why did you not tell Sarah?"

Sighing, Jake said, "Embarrassment. I felt like I'd...I don't know...like I'd _failed_."

"But you did not. I told you, it was my—"

Jake held up a hand to cut him off. "It doesn't matter what was going on in your head. It _felt_ like a failure to me, like I'd done something wrong, or been something wrong. I was the one who got left. And I wasn't too sure what to make of what had happened in the first place. It's the only time I've ever been with a guy, the only time I ever wanted to. So on the one hand, it was totally out of character. On the other—" He shrugged. "You were the most _right_ lover I've ever had. Wrong species, wrong gender, but absolutely the right person. I don't think I ever got over you leaving me." He looked up. "How was I supposed to explain that to my _wife_? So I didn't tell her the whole truth."

Frustrated past his ability to suppress, Salene walked over to pick up his cider mug, carry it into the kitchen and set it in the reclaimant. "I never intended you to fixate on me."

Jake rose, too. "Whether you intended it or not, it happened."

Salene was abruptly reminded of Jillian's rebuke, all those years ago: '_Consequences_ are what you're trying to avoid...But life is full of consequences, whether or not you're around to see them.' Had he really thought the only consequences would be to his life? He and Jake had shared something profound, built on a fragile trust which he had then broken. Bond or no bond, he did bear some responsibility for Jake's divorce; it was not merely inflated self-importance. Had he stayed with Jake eleven years ago, their relationship might have failed—but it would have been an honest failure. Instead, he had left Jake with a torn memory healed over by idealization. All Jake's future relationships had been weighed against his perception of what might have been...a might-have-been untarnished by mundane reality. Salene had become Jake's ne plus ultra, and remained the only one who could prove that image false. Ironically, he might do Sarah more good by giving Jake what he thought he wanted.

And how much of that, he asked himself, is mere rationalization for what _you_ want?

He came back into the family room, back to where Jake had risen from his chair, and held out two fingers of his right hand. Clearly baffled, Jake stared. Taking Jake's hand in his free one, Salene folded it into the proper form, then raised Jake's fingers to his own. Shock of contact, physical and mental. Through hooded eyes, he watched Jake draw startled breath. "You would have me as a partner? I am far from perfect."

"I didn't ask for perfect," Jake said. "I asked for you."

"Perhaps, but I fear you have conflated the two."

Jake closed his whole hand over Salene's: not a proper touch, but a very human one. "No, I haven't," he said. "I know your faults, maybe better than you do. You always say you don't have a temper, but if I interrupt you when you're working, you get short with me. Or, if I try to talk to you when you're playing gadulka, you look right at me and never answer—like you didn't even hear."

"Asking me questions when I am endeavoring to practice is not conducive to—"

Jake held up his free hand. "I'm making a point, not starting an argument. You wonder why I don't cook much any more, but cooking two meals—one veggie and one not—isn't easy. I won't quit eating meat for you."

"I never asked you to. And," he added dryly, "you don't cook because you tend to get involved _writing_."

Jake ignored the correction, went on, "You fuss if I leave things laying around, but when you clean up, I can't _find_ anything; you start laundry when I'm in the shower so all I get is hot or cold water; and you turn the heat way up because you're cold all the time, but you don't have to pay the power bill."

"Only because you will not permit it."

Waving a hand, Jake said, "I told you, I don't want to argue. That's not the point; we can fight about it later if you insist." But he was grinning as if he had already won the quarrel.

That insouciance annoyed Salene. "I could make a list of your less than sterling qualities, too."

Jake grinned harder. "No doubt. But you seem to think I don't see you, or know what I'm asking for when I say I want you. But I do. I know your virtues _and_ your faults."

Yet Salene had faults—and weaknesses—Jake did not know, might not want any part of. He started to turn away. Jake, hand still clasped tight around his, did not let him. "Don't play games with me, Salene. You started this; you made that crack about having you for a partner. Okay—I'm taking you up on it."

Salene's eyes widened. Jake stepped closer; they were still almost exactly the same height. Salene could feel Jake's breath; Jake's gaze had dropped to focus on Salene's mouth. Perhaps five inches separated their faces. This was the fork in the road. It had taken them three months to get here—three months to move back eleven years. Salene stared down the path not taken. "'Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,'" he whispered, "'and sorry I could not travel both, and be one traveler, long I stood, and looked down one as far as I could to where it bent in the undergrowth—'"

Jake snorted. "Do me a favor—don't quote old, overworn poetry to a writer." And he leaned in to press his lips to Salene's.


	3. III

Jake Sisko might be a night owl, but his daughter was a morning bird—so Salene had set his internal clock to wake before she did. She had a habit of crawling into bed to cuddle with her father of the morning. Salene did not think discovering him there would be the optimal way for her to learn about his altered relationship with Jake.

So he rose early, opened the stove flue and put a new log on the fire, then called her down to him when she woke, made them pancakes from the replicator. After, she sat on his lap and let him read her a Vulcan story. Jake had asked him to teach her Vulcan: "I think it'd be good for her to learn a second language this young." So, when they were alone together, he spoke to her only in Vulcan. And when they were alone together, her head on his chest while she listened to him read, he could forget for a time that she was not his child. He let one hand stroke her shoulder while he thumbed holobook frames with the other. She would lean against him, completely trusting, innocently assuming that she was the center of his world. She was, she and her father. They might be the only family he had now.

He stopped that train of thought; over the years, he had come to recognize his own exaggerations. He would not be here at all had Solymi not insisted. He had not lost his family, not entirely. He had done something worse: he had divided them. It might have been easier had they all been able to reject him. Or to accept him. But perhaps accepting him was asking too much.

There was a crash upstairs and a started shout. "Salene!"

Lulled and warm by the stove, Salene and Jenny both jumped. Salene swung her down—"Stay here"—and took the stairs three at a time. "Jake? Are you injured?"

Jake was in the master bedroom at the hall end. Apparently, he had come scrambling out of the bed, tugging bed sheets with him, and knocking over the end table in the process. Only half-awake, stark naked with a panicked look on his face, he was trying to right the table, pick up things from the floor. Seeing Salene in the doorway, he let out a breath and knelt down, as if to regain his balance. "You are still here."

Salene understood then.

Jake had woken alone—just as he had eleven years ago.

Shutting the door firmly behind, Salene came over to kneel on the floor by Jake, twitch a corner of blanket over Jake's lap. Jenny was not good yet at obeying a command for more than a few minutes. She would come trailing up here soon. Then he set a palm on Jake's chest roughly where he knew the human heart to lie. He looked at his hand—tan skin against brown—not at Jake's face. "I am not going anywhere. That first day, you asked if I could give you my word on that, and I did. I will not leave you unless you ask me to." He paused, then added, "I did not wish Jenny to find me in her mother's place this morning. So I rose before she did."

Turning, still not looking at Jake, he set the table back on its legs, replaced the lamp and communit and the bookPADD which Jake had been reading—though not last night. On the floor under the table were three discarded tissues, dry now and stiff. He threw these into the reclaimer as Jenny shoved the door open.

"Daddy?"

"I'm okay, honey. I just tried to get out of bed before I was awake."

She climbed onto his lap, wrapped arms around his neck and kissed him good morning: a sloppy, imprecise child-kiss. She gave these out frequently and with profligate abandon—to her father, the cats, her stuffed animals, probably the newt if Jake did not watch carefully, and even to Salene. He had never told her not to.

"Why don't you go back downstairs for a bit," Jake was saying to her. "Daddy needs to dress."

She grabbed Salene's hand and tugged at him. "Come back and tell me stories!"

"I will in a moment." He pulled his hand free and turned her towards the door, gave her a gentle push. "Go." And he shut the door behind her. Jake was already calling up clean underwear from the repli-dresser, hopping from bare foot to bare foot on the wooden planks. Cold air had goosepimpled his flesh and he hurried into his clothing. Salene leaned against the door and watched.

"What're you staring at?" Jake asked. His teeth were chattering.

"We have to tell her."

"Yeah, I know," Jake said from inside a sweater. His head popped out the top and he tugged at the hem. "At least she likes you."

"That is not necessarily advantageous. She has grown accustomed to me in one role: that of family friend. She may feel...betrayed...if I assume a place that belonged to her mother."

Jake was shaking his head as he sat to put on slippers. "I doubt it. I'm not sure she remembers enough. Sarah hasn't been around for almost eight months now, and for half a year before that, we kept to separate rooms. I was down where you've been sleeping; Sarah was up here. Jenny sensed there was something wrong, but I'm not sure she realized what, or that parents are _supposed_ to sleep together."

Salene crossed his arms. "Terran parents, you mean. Vulcan parents would not."

Grinning, Jake stood. "Touche, my friend. Maybe someday I'll get used to thinking to make the distinction. But I hope you don't plan to keep that particular Vulcan custom."

Smiling ever so slightly, Salene pushed himself away from the door, opened it. "Not at the present—no."

As Jake passed, he touched Salene's arm. It would have been insignificant had Salene not been Vulcan. But he was. To touch so casually was something only a mate would presume to do. Salene wondered if Jake understood that, or if he did it instinctively. In any case, he followed his friend downstairs.

 

 

But they did not attempt to explain things to Jenny that morning. Jake went back to his office to work and Salene took her outside to decide where to plant a garden when the weather turned seasonable. He wondered if, with a greenhouse, Vulcan plants might be coaxed to grow on Earth. When he had mentioned the garden earlier, Jake had given him a double-take, but said nothing. Salene could guess what Jake was thinking: they would not be in this house long enough to harvest anything, perhaps not long enough even to plant. But that was one of several matters about which Salene intended to talk to Jake when they put Jenny down for her nap.

Last night, this relationship had stopped being ephemeral and become very, very real. There had been none of the fey feeling of those two long-ago encounters in New Orleans. It had been as concrete as the cool black Pennsylvania soil Salene rubbed in his fingers. Jenny watched, then copied the gesture—less neatly. She grabbed a fistful, dropped it, then immediately itched her nose with the dirty hand. "Ela," he said, gesturing her to him. Wetting his thumb with saliva, he rubbed her face clean. The hand would require water. "vo-lae'en kha." Let's go in.

He washed her hands in the bathroom sink, then made her try to urinate, though she insisted she did not need to. He knew perfectly well that it was time. She would say she did not need to go even while in the very process of doing so. She resisted toilet training violently, and now sat on the little plastic seat, glaring at him in sullen defiance. "Dwe-ack friend!" You're not my friend.

"Tel'hy," he corrected placidly. "Dwe-ack tel'hy."She crossed her arms and humphed. Behind him, someone chuckled. Jake had come out of his office and stood watching. "She hates it that she can't get a rise out of you."

"There is not much point," Salene said. "In half an hour, I will be her friend again."

Jake just grinned, stepped past to take care of his daughter. "How did the gardening go?"

"The soil near the water"—a small creek ran along the back of the property—"is the richest, although given your report of the creek's tendency to flood in the spring, perhaps not the best choice. The soil by the shed will do."

Jake pulled up Jenny's training pants, dumped the contents of the child's toilet into the adult one and flushed. Such a profligate waste of water. But this was Earth. Jenny dashed out past Salene's legs, glad to escape the bathroom and return to play—for now, alone. It would be some minutes before she forgave the adults for subjecting her to the onerous interruption of waste elimination.

"The house will have to be sold, you know," Jake was saying while he washed his hands.

"Is that what you want?" Salene asked. "I was under the contrary impression."

"Lights off." Jake stepped back into the hall; They faced one another across the width of it. "I can't keep this place, Salene. I can't afford it."

"I can."

Jake turned his head away, frowned at the half-open door to his office. Salene stood in the entrance to the guest room in which he had slept until last night.

"Jake," Salene said, "if we are to be partners, then we are to be partners in all things—including expenses."

"I don't intend to live off you."

"So instead, you have insisted on the reverse. As a guest, I was willing to accede, although remaining your 'guest' for three months, ten days was something of an absurdity. But I am not a guest now, and you are not 'living off' of me. You have a vocation as well. That the compensation for it is less than what I receive is an unfortunate reflection of Terran attitudes toward the arts. Nevertheless, if we are partners, then we share resources as well as a bed." Salene paused. Jake still stared at his office door. "That means we may remain in this house, if it is your wish."

"Sarah's name is on the deed, and on the mortgage. Besides"—Jake finally turned his eyes back to Salene—"what about your music? Once you said that choosing me would mean you had to give up your career. I can't let you do that."

"My perceptions then were...immature. I was young. I understand things now which I did not understand then." For one thing, he understood what Seltor had tried to tell him all those years ago when he had first become chi`pain: 'Companionship can be found in other quarters...do not turn aside the chance for companionship even if it is not embodied in the traditional mate.'

Salene tilted his head, listening. In the family room, Jenny talked to herself or, more likely, to and for one of her toys. She was a remarkably _verbal_ child. In any case, she was sufficiently distracted for the moment. "Come," he said, and gestured Jake into the room which he had made his own. Picking up his gadulka from its stand, he threw the strap over his shoulder and ran fingers over the strings. Jake sprawled in the Vulcan musnud in the corner and listened to him. The musnud was one of the pieces of furniture which Solymi had shipped to him. "I cannot marry you," Salene said after a moment.

"You told me that last night. I guess I'm not too sure what you mean then, when you say we're 'partners.'"

"I mean precisely that: we are partners." He played a chord progression, as if he could find his courage in the notes. "The Vulcan word is t'hy'la. It is related to the word for friend."

"Tel'hy."

"You were listening."

Jake smiled. "I've been known to listen now and then. So what does it mean, 't'hy'la'?"

"Friend and more-than-friend, alter-ego, lover, life-partner...." Salene let the chords take him into a bit of very old melody. "Its meaning depends on context. It is a deep word, a hidden word—one you will not find in a Vulcan dictionary."

Jake's eyebrow went up. "What? Vulcans have secrets?" His voice was heavy with irony.

Head lowered to watch his hands, Salene did not bother to reply.

"So," Jake said after a minute, "what happens with your singing?"

"It continues. Or will, when I inform the concertmaster that I am prepared to return to performing."

"When will that be?"

"When this matter between us is settled. I never set a date on my returning. At the time, it was not possible." He hoped Jake would not ask why just at the moment.

Instead, Jake said, "They won't forbid you to sing, when they find out about us? Or will you tell them?"

Salene looked up finally, stilled the strings with his hand. "They would not have 'forbidden' me in any case; I would simply have received no invitations from a Vulcan source. And...there is telling and there is telling. This is what I have learned, in the intervening years. So long as the two of us maintain certain...illusions...I may make whatever arrangements I please."

Jake laughed without humor. "Vulcans and secrets! What you're saying is that Vulcans have affairs all the time, they just call them something else?" His voice sounded vaguely incredulous.

"Perhaps not 'all the time,'" Salene corrected, "but essentially...yes."

Before Jake could reply to that, a startled shriek and a crash interrupted. Jake was out the door in an instant, Salene on his heels as soon as he could set down the instrument. A terrified cat nearly tripped him on its way to the sanctuary of Jake's office.

"Jennifer Gwendolyn!" Jake was shouting. Salene rounded the corner into the kitchen, stopped cold.

Water soaked the sitting room carpet around broken glass. Jenny had pulled down the newt aquarium onto herself. She lay unmoving in the midst of the mess.

 

 

Jake had an unfortunate tendency to panic. Perhaps one thing which had drawn Salene to him in the first place was the fact that his emotionalism made Salene feel controlled in comparison. Now, Salene set a hand on his shoulder to keep him out of the pediatrician's way as she ran the regenerator over Jenny's shoulder. "The cuts and breaks aren't as serious as they might have been," the woman said. "She was lucky."

"How could I have been so stupid?" Jake muttered for perhaps the twentieth time. "I shouldn't have left her alone that long."

The pediatrician snapped the regenerator shut and patted Jenny's cheek, smiled. "You're a brave girl!" Then she turned to Jenny's father. "Maybe you shouldn't. But kids have a remarkable ability to get into trouble, whether you leave them for five minutes or fifteen. You can't watch them constantly. I take it you didn't have the aquarium put where she could easily reach it?"

"I didn't think so—" Jake began.

"He did not," Salene interrupted, then added somewhat dryly, "It required no little ingenuity on her part to reach it at all." He caught Jenny's eyes. "She used a chair to climb onto the table in order to get to the shelf. She knew very well that she was not supposed to be up there."

The pediatrician looked Salene up and down, unsure as to his place in this family triangle, then she turned back to Jenny. "So somebody learned a lesson today, didn't she? When Daddy says not to touch something unless he's there to help, smart little girls listen. From now on, you'll be a smart little girl, won't you?"

Wide-eyed still from her scare, Jenny nodded dutifully. Her small brown face was stark. The pediatrician lifted her off the exam table and handed her to her father. "She'll be fine. Maybe a little shaky for the rest of today, but fine."

 

 

The newt, unfortunately, would not be. How long it might have survived outside the aquarium, they would never know. Jake had stepped on it in his rush to get to Jenny.

The whole mess was still waiting to be cleaned up when they returned to the house. They had taken Jenny straight to the hospital. Salene applied himself to the task while Jake carried a sleeping Jenny upstairs to her room. She had missed her normal naptime but the pediatrician had given her antibiotics, a relaxant, and a mild painkiller, so she was groggy and had gone to sleep in her flitterseat.

Now Salene cleaned up shattered glass and algae-covered gravel, wondering why Jake had purchased an aquarium of breakable glass. He did not realize he was shaking until he dumped the last of the wet sponges into the reclaimant. Delayed reaction. Now that the crisis was past, it had caught up with him. Jenny could have died; the falling aquarium could have hit her skull, instead of just breaking her shoulder. He sat down at the breakfast bar and put his head in his hands, struggled for control. Jake found him that way a few minutes later, set palms on his shoulders, squeezed. They said nothing. Jake put on water for tea, set out crumpets. Tea was a habit he had picked up at Cambridge. Italian espresso in the morning, English tea at mid-afternoon.

"I've had that newt almost ten years," Jake said after a while. "I got it at Pennington. It was the only kind of pet we could keep in the dorms."

Salene looked up finally, took the tea cup which Jake handed him. "You _traveled_ with a newt?"

"No, grandpa kept it till I settled in Rome." He sat down on the stool opposite Salene. "I _stepped_ on it. I kept it alive for ten years, then killed it by _stepping_ on it."

It was like Jake to mourn even an amphibian.

"You were somewhat distracted at the time."

"Yeah." Jake poured milk into his tea, did not appear consoled.

"There is a Vulcan word: kaiidth. 'What is, is.'" Although he had to admit, he had never thought to apply it to the demise of a newt. "Guilt cannot bring it back; thus, guilt serves no purpose."

Jake just eyed at him. "Telling me it's illogical to feel guilty doesn't change the fact, Salene."

Salene dropped his eyes. They sat in silence again until Jake broke it. "Thanks for keeping me calm, at the hospital."

If Jake considered his behavior at the hospital to be 'calm,' Salene feared to see him distressed.

"I could sense you almost," Jake went on now. "Like you were inside my head, like some of your control bled over into me." He looked up at Salene. "Was that because of last night?"

Frowning at the surface of the brown liquid in his cup, Salene shook his head. "Not entirely."

Jake sipped tea. "I didn't think so." Remarkably, he did not appear upset. "I've sensed it, off and on, since you got here. I wasn't sure what it was at first—or if I was just imagining it—but it was like I could _feel_ what you did, the same as in the mindmeld back in New Orleans. It's a result of that mindmeld, isn't it?"

"No." Salene looked up, met Jake's eye, spoke the truth he had kept to himself until now: "I set a bond between us."

Very slowly, Jake put down his cup and straightened. "What?" Now, there was anger. He had been willing to forgive their connection as an accidental side effect of the mindmeld. He was not willing to forgive it as a deliberate act.

Salene dropped his eyes to the cup. "Before I left you, in New Orleans, I set a bond between us. Since I could not give you my presence, I gave you my soul."

Jake had risen, taken a step back. His skin had gone grey. "You mean you did it on purpose _and never told me_?"

"You are mind-blind. I did not believe it would affect you."

"How the hell would you know? How the hell would you know _what_ it'd do to me?"

Salene did not answer. It was a fair question.

"No wonder I couldn't ever stop thinking about you! I've had this..._thing_...in my head! And no wonder I've never been able to maintain a relationship with anybody else! You made sure I wouldn't!"

"Jake, that was never my intention—"

"Shut up! How can I trust what you say? You did something to my head without my permission!"

Salene lowered his eyes again. He was guilty as charged. "I did not set the bond to interfere in your life. I swear it on my honor. At the time, I truly saw it as a gift. My secret gift. I was young; it was a foolish act, but I meant no imposition. Had I thought it might bind you, I would never have put it there. But you are mind-blind. It bound only me."

"But you didn't _know_ that for sure!"

"Given what I know of bonds, it should not—"

"But you didn't _know_. And you didn't ask me!"

There was a long silence. Finally, in a low hard voice, Jake said, "Get out of my house. Break this bond, pack your things, and get out of my house."

For a long moment, Salene sat numb: he could not think, could not feel, could not react in any way. Finally, he said only, "I cannot break the bond. Only a healer can. Or my death."

Another long silence, then Jake whispered, "Damn you."

Indeed I am, Salene thought to himself as he stood, wobbly with shock. His stomach roiled. "I will...go pack." He moved past Jake without looking at him.

It did not take long to order what he had in the two large carry-cases which he had brought with him initially, along with his gadulka. The larger objects like the musnud, he would leave. Perhaps he would retrieve them later. Perhaps he would not. He kept glancing at the door, hoping Jake would come in to stop him, but the door remained shut.

When he exited the room, Jake was nowhere to be seen. The door to the back office was closed. Salene used the comm to call for private transport, though he had no idea where to go. Then he waited in a chair by the front bay window, looking out at the street as he had done the first day he had arrived here. After a few minutes, he heard the office door open. He did not turn. Behind him, Jake spoke, "Do you have to be present, to break the bond?"

"No."

"Any Vulcan healer can do it?"

"Yes."

Footsteps receded back down the hall and the door closed. On the street outside, a small silver cab set down in front of the house. Salene picked up his luggage and left by the front door.

 

He did not know what day it was, or where he was. Nor did he care. White Terran sunlight came and went. Sometimes he remembered to eat. He did not really sleep, but dozed, immobile on thin yellow bed sheets in a room he had rented...somewhere, during the time he could still think.

His bags and his gadulka sat unpacked by the dresser. Sometimes he stared at them and thought that he should probably get up and do something with them. But he never did. He rose only when his body demanded that he feed it, or that he void himself. Something in him still cared enough to resist soiling the bed. In a little while, that part would stop caring, too, he knew. It had happened before.

 

 

Someone outside knocked on the door, called something in a language he knew he should recognize but did not. He ignored the voice. After a while, it went away.

People in uniforms came some time after that; he did not know how long. They talked at him. He could not understand them. After a while, they quit talking at him and talked to each other. More people came, put him on a floating cot and took him away. He should have told them not to forget his luggage, but did not care enough. Let it be forgotten. Perhaps he could sleep where they took him, sleep and forget.


	4. IV

A gentle chime announced a visitor. Jake Sisko left off edits to his latest novel, rose to answer the door to the little three-room efficiency he'd rented in one of the renovated Victorian-style buildings of downtown Bellefonte. His front window overlooked the main street with its awful neo-Mussolini courthouse squatting on the hill at one end.

Bellefonte had been an important stop on the iron railway in the 1800s, eclipsed entirely by the urbanizing trend of the late 1900s, then resurrected in the 2200s as a retreat for crafters and artists, as well as for stray faculty—like Sarah—from the big university-center twenty miles to the south. As with most state universities and colleges after the collapse of the old United States, the university in central Pennsylvania had been transformed into one in a series of academic centers, each specializing in a particular discipline. Students might have a class in Texas in the morning, then hop the bullet-train to Pennsylvania for their afternoon session, then take a quick-stop shuttle to Brasilia for an evening seminar.

Ostensibly, the collection of specialists in a field was designed to foster greater advances through ease of communication and a little healthy competition. Jake thought it fostered greater insularity; Pennington had suffered from something similar. He preferred the old fashioned European university with its multi-discipline approach, even if many thought it archaic—his wife among them. Sarah Fernandez had bought thoroughly into the Academic Center System of the Americas. She had used to introduce him to her colleagues as, "My husband, the Cambridge graduate," with an unkind emphasis on 'Cambridge' and there would be smiles all around.

She wouldn't introduce him that way any longer.

Now, he triggered the door open and, for just an instant, thought Salene stood on the other side. Then he realized his visitor was too short and too young and too...something. Mature in the face, perhaps. Despite Salene's sharp features, he would always have a boyish look. Jake was staring at how Salene might have appeared, had he been allowed to mature normally, and he knew who his visitor was without being told. "Solymi."

The other nodded.

Jake stood aside in unspoken invitation and Solymi stepped past him, into the sitting room. Small and slight, Salene's younger brother came only to Jake's chin and Jake thought about what Salene had said all those years ago: that his height was a function of his eunuchism, not genetics. Solymi was duskier than Salene, too, wavy black hair cut short in a variation on the usual Vulcan style: parted to the right with bangs swept sideways. His face was narrower, and his cheeks had a dark shadow of beard. But the gypsy eyes were the same, the fleshy prominent nose, the unusually straight brows, the petulant curve of mouth. He and Salene had clearly been cast from the same mold and, ears aside, Jake had seen their human cousins among the Romani Rai in the historic quarter of Budapest.

He waited for Solymi to explain his arrival, but Solymi merely surveyed the sparsely furnished room. "Given your current location, I may assume that you and your wife have permanently separated?"

"Yes." Jake said nothing else. Neither did Solymi, and Jake's patience was not equal to a Vulcan's. Finally, he asked, "Did you want something?"

Turning, Solymi tucked his hands behind his back. Jake had seen Salene use the same posture at times. "It has been nearly three weeks since you sent away my brother—yet you still maintain the link which was the cause for your dismissal of him. Why?"

Jake didn't like being under inquisition on his own turf. "I've been busy. My wife just got back; we had things to settle."

"Your wife returned only seven days ago; twelve passed between Salene's departure and her arrival ... sufficient time to seek a healer and break the bond. If you were unable to locate a healer in such time"—his tone said how unlikely he found that—"let me offer myself. I will break it."

"You?"

"I am a healer."

So, Salene's long-ago predictions had turned out to be wrong. His little brother was not a writer; he was a doctor.

Jake turned away, walked to the front window. "Does he want it?"

"I was under the impression that you did."

"I was mad at him. He didn't have any _right_ to set that bond!"

"No, he did not."

"I needed some time, to think it over."

"And your conclusions?"

Jake stared at the flitter traffic in the street below. Spring had sprung early this year. Tulips made a riot of red and orange and violet in flowerbeds, and the wind blew pink and white petals from the dogwoods, dusting the sidewalk like April snow.

"I didn't expect him to _leave_—not really," Jake said. It wasn't an answer to Solymi's question.

"Yet you demanded that he vacate your house."

Turning his head, Jake glared. "I told you; I was angry. I figured he'd go get a motel room for the night, give me a chance to cool down, then we could talk about it in the morning. Instead he took off...God knows where. I couldn't find him."

Solymi pulled out the rolling chair from Jake's desk and seated himself. Folding hands in his lap, he said, "My brother boarded a MagLev, which he perhaps intended to take to San Francisco but rode only as far as Fargo, North Dakota. In Fargo, he left the train and checked into an inn; he does not remember why and his motivation is probably irrelevant. After his departure from your house, he quit taking his medication, so his reasoning would have been questionable in any case. When the inn owner realized that she had not seen him for fourteen days, and received no replies to knocks on his door, she contacted the local authorities, who took him to a hospital in San Francisco. The doctors there contacted me."

Alarm ruffled wings in the pit of Jake's belly and he frowned. "Medication? What do you mean, he quit taking his medication? I didn't know he was sick!"

Solymi cocked his head. "My brother has been ill for most of his life, to a greater or lesser degree. His medication permits him to function normally. If he fails to take it—by accident or deliberate choice—he quickly begins to present severe pathological symptoms."

Stunned, Jake pulled around a dining room chair to face Solymi, sat down. "What are you trying to tell me? What kind of pathological symptoms?"

"Salene has a condition which Terrans term 'recurrent major depressive disorder'; it is a noradrenergic dysfunction. Put simply, his brain chemistry is abnormal. He requires medication to correct it."

Jake blinked, sat back a little, too surprised to react yet.

Solymi continued, "You see, I am not only Salene's brother, Jake Sisko. I am also his psychiatrist."

***

"What do you mean you can't watch her tomorrow?" Sarah glared at him from the other end of comm. "Jake, it's after nine o'clock and I teach a class at nine in the morning. You know perfectly well I can't find a sitter now! And I can hardly take her with me."

Jake sighed. "Call my grandparents, Sarah."

"Then I'd have to drive her all the way south of Boalsburg before class! That'll take almost an hour in morning traffic even on the high lane. And just when do you plan to be _back_?"

Jake glanced up at Solymi, who stood out of sight behind the comm. screen. "I'm going to San Francisco; I don't know when I'll be back."

"This is absurd—you have responsibilities. You can't just run off at the drop of a hat!"

Irritated, Jake turned his eyes back to the screen. "That's right, I have responsibilities! To a friend. He came once when I needed him. It's my turn to do the same for him. Emergencies happen. You just don't like anything that inconveniences you!"

"Jake, that's unfair."

"Then how would you explain it?"

She threw up her hands. "You act like this is some minor little annoyance! It's not; it's a major headache! You know that we decided you'd have her during the day and I'd take her at night—"

"Again for _your_ convenience!" Jake snapped.

"I _work_ during the day!"

"Of course you do, so of course I have to work at night."

"It doesn't matter when you work! You're a writer!"

"I'm also your free childcare."

"She's your child! I didn't think you found it such a hardship!"

Jake collapsed in a chair and rubbed his eyes. "Of course not. But the point remains that the arrangement is convenient for you—more for you than for me—"

"Oh, yes! _You_ get her in the morning when you're rested; I get her at night after I've put in a whole day at work!"

"Sarah, shut up. Just...shut up. I didn't call to argue about our arrangements for Jenny. It wouldn't even have come up except that you're being unreasonable."

"You're asking the unreasonable!"

"Look— Do you want me to call my grandparents, or can you find someone else to babysit while I'm gone? This is an emergency; my leaving is not up for debate. You teach _one_ class tomorrow."

Sarah's expression could best be described as full reverse, but she said only, "I'll call Isabelle," and cut the connection.

Jake practically slammed down the comm screen into its holder. Solymi had watched the entire exchange silently. Now, he said, "When will you be prepared to leave?"

Rubbing a hand over his face, Jake answered, "Half an hour."

***

They were beamed to San Francisco. As a doctor, Solymi could commandeer an unscheduled emergency transport; beaming in was how he had reached Bellefonte, too. In the waiting area to the psych ward of the Federation Interstellar Hospital, Solymi left Jake, who collapsed on a couch and put his head in his hands. Up to this point, there had been no time to think. Solymi had explained Salene's condition, then Jake had packed to leave. Now, he couldn't avoid thinking.

Why had Salene never told him about the depression? Jake had seen Salene take pills every evening, had even asked once if they were vitamins or something; Salene had not gainsaid it. He had not lied outright, but he may as well have. Why hadn't he been honest? What had he been afraid of?

"He dislikes anything he perceives to be special treatment," Solymi had said. "Even more, he dislikes pity." Jake knew that, had discovered it the first time they had met, all those years ago. But it was pity for his castration which he had refused then and, when Jake had learned that his castration had been his own choice, Jake had given him none. This was different, and yes, Jake felt sorry for him. But more, he felt angry and betrayed—again. Every time he thought he knew Salene, something else popped up. What more was Salene hiding? They'd been discussing a permanent partnership, for pete's sake!

"I did warn him to tell you," Solymi had said earlier. "I do not know why he ignored my advice."

Jake didn't know either, except that they had only just begun discussing the future when Jenny had pulled over the fish tank on herself and, almost immediately after returning from the emergency room, Jake had learned of the bond...and thrown Salene out of the house. But why hadn't Salene said something earlier?

"The bond Salene set didn't have any effect on Sarah and me, did it?" he had asked Solymi.

"No," Solymi had answered. "You would have been aware of it only if Salene were in physical proximity to you—a range of perhaps six meters, for the mind-blind."

Suspicions confirmed, Jake had just nodded. He had given a lot of thought to the bond and his marriage, after Salene had left. He had come to realize the marriage had collapsed under the stress of its own defects, not the pull of some unknown bond. That didn't make what Salene had done right, but Jake couldn't blame him for the divorce.

Footsteps announced Solymi's return. Jake raised his head. Solymi sat on the tan plastic couch opposite, folded his hands loosely between his knees. "He says he is too ashamed to see you."

"You told him I was here?" That surprised Jake; he had just assumed Solymi planned to spring him on Salene.

"Of course I told him," Solymi replied now, voice sharp. "It would have been a breach of trust for me not to. He is mentally ill, not simple, or incapable of making some decisions for himself.

"Sorry," Jake said and frowned at his hands. "But I didn't come all this way for nothing. Tell him I said that. And tell him I'm still a little mad about the bond, but I'm madder that he didn't come back so we could just have it out in a regular fight, and I'm really mad that he ran off and did this to himself. Tell him also that I said he'd better not do it again or I'll come after him next time."

Solymi blinked, thrown for a moment, then he nodded gravely. "I shall relay your message." He rose to leave, paused, added, "You do understand him, I see. Sometimes he must be...'knocked over the head with the obvious'—to use a Terran phrasing."

Jake laughed. He could get to like Salene's little brother.

***

Salene looked like shit. There was no other term for it. His long hair was a tangled mess, he had circles under his eyes from lack of sleep, and his face was gaunt and haunted with that fragile, distracted look which characterized mental patients. Dressed in loose hospital grey, he sat on the floor, knees up and back to a wall. When Jake entered, he glanced up dully but otherwise did not react. If this was 'improved', Jake wondered what he'd looked like when they had found him in Fargo five days ago.

"Hi," Jake said, feeling awkward and unsure of himself and wishing Solymi had come in with him after all. Though he had been warned, he'd unconsciously expected Salene to look like he always did: neat and composed—Vulcan. Instead, he looked like shit.

Salene did not speak, though he did not glance away, either. At a loss, Jake made his way over to sit down by him. "Your brother says you haven't eaten dinner yet. What would you like? I'll program for us both." Though Jake had left Bellefonte at ten o'clock, he had not eaten either. After hearing Solymi's news, he'd clean forgotten.

But Salene just shook his head, leaned it back against the wall and closed his eyes.

Jake sighed. Now what did he say? He had never before been around someone suffering a psychotic episode. It was relatively rare, psychopharmacology being finely tuned by the twenty-fourth century. Most conditions were diagnosed and treated quickly, easily and precisely, and while Jake knew a significant mental illness like depression could bar one from service in Starfleet, most chronic sufferers took their medication and went about their lives with little interruption...and with few people any the wiser. That Jake had never guessed about Salene was evidence enough of that.

He had wanted to yell at Salene: for having kept his condition to himself, for having set a secret bond between them, even for having obeyed Jake's expressed wish that he leave instead of Jake's real one that he remain and apologize. But in the face of Salene's current condition, he could not be angry. It was too evident in Salene's face that he already hated himself enough for them both, hated himself more than he deserved, more than any being deserved.

"Among the symptoms of Salene's disorder," Solymi had explained, "are delusions that the patient is innately evil and responsible for all adversity that he faces. Reality is distorted, and any sense of proportion is lost. For a variety of reasons, some personal, some cultural, my brother is particularly susceptible to this tendency."

Reaching out—carefully, lest he startle Salene—Jake took his friend's hand. Salene tried to worm the hand free but Jake would not let him. "Stop it; listen to me! I didn't really want you to leave. I know I said I did, but I didn't. I was angry, and I have a temper."

Salene was silent.

"All I wanted, I think, was an apology. You gave me protests, explanations, even a blunt admission of guilt—but you never actually said you were _sorry_. Maybe I should've assumed it, but I wanted to hear it. I didn't want you to leave, even if I told you to. Humans don't always say what they mean. You should know that by now."

Still Salene said nothing, though he had quit trying to take back the hand. It lay limp in Jake's; Jake rubbed his thumb back and forth over the back of it.

"I left Sarah—for good. I'm living in a little apartment about ten blocks from our house. I walk there in the morning to stay with Jenny while Sarah's teaching, then walk back when she comes home. It's a temporary arrangement, but works for now. We've applied for a formal divorce. I don't blame the bond for that; I'm not sure I ever really did. I was just upset when I said those things. As soon as I had time to think about it, I knew better. I've never been able to maintain a long-term relationship because I get too wrapped up in my writing. That's my peculiar failing, not the result of anything you did. Most people don't understand that; Sarah certainly didn't. She wanted more of me."

"But being a writer _is_ who you are."

Jake almost jumped. It was the first thing Salene had said, the first indication he'd given that Jake wasn't just talking to the wall. "Yes," Jake said now, trying not to sound too eager. "And you always understood that—understood the part of me that mattered. The rest was just miscommunication across cultures; it didn't seem all that important...though it does seem to keep tripping us up, doesn't it? Maybe we'll get better at it, with time."

Salene did not reply again and inwardly, Jake cursed himself. Too fast. He was moving too fast. Salene had started trying to twist his hand free once more, but half-heartedly, as if a part of him did not really want free. Or so Jake chose to interpret it.

He squeezed the hand once, tightly, then let go and pushed himself up. "I'm hungry. How about some pesto over pasta? You like pesto." Salene did not reply but did not refuse so Jake walked over to the replicator and called up two servings, and iced tea. He was a little surprised to find a personal replicator here, but the room was quite nice: a privacy screen hid the bed, there was a couch and chair, a small dining table, the replicator, a desk with a terminal, a private bathroom. The decor was muted mauve and grey. For patients neither violent nor dangerous to themselves, rooms were designed for comfort and dignity: more hotel than hospital. Only a single sensor panel in the wall near the door, and another above the bed, gave away that Salene was under observation and treatment.

Jake set his bowl on the table, and Salene's in front of the chair opposite. He pulled out that chair and waited. Salene was frowning at his hands. Finally he got up and, still without comment, sat down. Jake did the same. They ate. Solymi entered as they were finishing and, for just a moment, his expression was startled—as if Jake had unexpectedly succeeded in teaching his dog new tricks. Then the expression was gone, replaced by that placid approval which Jake had come to realize substituted among Vulcans for a huge grin. He sat down in a third chair at the table and watched his brother. Seeing them together like this, the family resemblance was striking. Jake wondered if Saserna shared it. Three peas in a pod. An only child, Jake had always been just a little bit jealous of Salene for having not just one brother, but two.

When Salene had finished the last of his pesto, Solymi set a little plastic cup on the table and pushed it across to him. The cup held one white pill and one pink-and-yellow one. Salene eyed the cup with distaste, poured out the pills into his hand. The white one showed up stark against his tan skin. "My 'normalcy.'"

"So would a different sort of medication be," Solymi said calmly, "had you been born with T'Bet's syndrome. You have a physiological dysfunction, not a moral defect."

Salene ignored that, swallowed the pills, then turned to Jake and said, "My brother understates the matter. I should wear bells or clappers, to alert the sane of my approach. We mentally ill are the lepers of Vulcan."

Unsure how to respond, Jake pulled in his chin and raised an eyebrow.

Solymi snorted. "And my brother has always been given to dramatic exaggeration. Never assume malice until ignorance is disproved. We have discussed this before, Salene; the average Vulcan is simply ignorant."

"Even Saserna?"

Solymi did not reply to that, but he looked irritated.

A good deal was going on here which Jake didn't understand: a conversation conducted—or a war fought—with him used for dumb cover. Before he could think how to object, Solymi stood. "Come, Jake. We should leave for the evening. He needs to sleep."

"Meaning that I am not behaving myself, so he will send me to bed—though not without my supper, in this case."

Solymi's lips thinned. "You should be improved by morning," he told his brother.

"Indeed! The magic pill will make it all better!"

"Salene— Your attitude is illogical."

"Of course it is! I am insane, remember?" Salene shoved himself away from the table. The chair fell with a crash. It made Jake jump. "The insane are not _logical_, brother-healer."

"You are not insane. You are recovering from a major depressive episode and, as ironic as it may sound, your hostility is an indicator of improvement. You know this; you have been through it before. You will feel better tomorrow."

"Notice the emphasis he places on 'feel,'" Salene said to Jake. Jake kept his mouth shut, afraid to say the wrong thing. "I am somewhat more than you bargained for, am I not?" Salene asked wryly. "Perhaps you will change your mind about me."

Goaded, Jake blurted back, "I won't. We're in this together. Your brother's right. You're ill. I don't blame you for it any more than I would if you'd caught Tarkalian fever. You'll get better."

"But I shall never get _well_."

"You don't know that!" Jake paused, caught his breath and dropped his eyes from Salene's, added, "I'll see you in the morning." He followed Solymi out.

Without speaking, Solymi led him to a conference room with a table in the middle of it and a bank of replicators on the wall. Solymi ordered hot tea for himself, glanced at Jake. "Espresso," Jake said. "I need the caffeine."

Solymi brought over both cups. "Do you still wish to remain?"

"Like I told him, we're in this together. I'm staying."

"You saw him at his worst."

It occurred to Jake that perhaps Solymi had been testing him. He took a sip of bitter drink to wash away bitter memory. "How much of what he said is true? Do Vulcans treat him like a leper?"

Solymi leaned back in his chair, studied Jake's face. "Most are completely unaware that he is ill; nor do the few who do know speak of it. It would be a breach of his privacy. But yes, it is true that many Vulcans are ignorant of and made uncomfortable by mental illness, and occasionally say something unfortunate, even if not aimed at him. But then, so do many humans."

Jake was forced to nod; it was true. _He_ had been uncomfortable with Salene, just now. "We don't know what to do, what to say—what not to say."

"Understandable. Dealing with those who do not react rationally can be disquieting. Because my brother's disorder is an affective one—that is, related to his emotions and his ability to control them—it is additionally distressing to Vulcans." He glanced away abruptly. "I fear they are inclined to see it as a fault, a weakness. But my brother _cannot_ control his depression, and not from lack of trying. To expect him to is as...idiotic...as expecting someone with defective optical nerves to be able to see without corrective surgery. He did manage without medication for nine years—from his seventeenth year to his twenty-sixth. We had hoped him recovered."

So—when Jake had first met him, he had not been on medication. That knowledge made Jake feel a little better, as if he had missed less. "Why'd he have to go back on it?"

Solymi continued to keep his eyes averted; blankness settled over his features: an expression Jake recognized as extreme discomfort. "He...underwent a hormonal shift; all Vulcans in their late-twenties do. You could perhaps say that we suffer two puberties. As a eunuch, Salene was spared the more...distasteful...manifestation of the second but he still retains his suprarenal glands which secrete sufficient androgens to alter his brain chemistry. It is a dangerous time for chi`pain. Some few lose their voices. My brother lost his control. Again. He has been in and out of hospitals since; his illness is now worse than when he was a child. Last year, he was forced to take an indefinite leave of absence from performing. He collapsed before a concert."

Salene hadn't told Jake that. More selective truth. Vulcans had it honed to an art form. They might avoid lying if at all possible, but they sure as hell didn't always tell the truth.

After a long silence, Solymi added, "When I received my license last year, my brother was my first patient. He was, in some ways, my reason for pursing the branch of medicine which I did. To a human, it might seem peculiar for me to have my brother as a patient: a conflict of interests. But the Vulcan is expected to separate the personal from the professional. Indeed, our kinship is an advantage most of the time, particularly when I must meld with him—but occasionally, it obstructs. I may be his psychiatrist, yet I remain his younger brother. He does not always take me seriously." His voice was wry. "In any case"—he turned back to Jake—"since learning of the bond between you, I have endeavored to convince him to seek you out again. For Vulcans, an active bond can be as effective a stabilizing force as antidepressants, and preferable to high dosages."

Several things clicked together in Jake's mind then. Solymi had not come to Bellefonte just to reconcile the two of them. Of course, Jake should have guessed as much; Vulcans weren't sentimental. Solymi viewed Jake pragmatically: a source of healing for Salene. But Jake also understood why Salene had _not_ said anything about his condition earlier, or even about the bond until Jake had asked. He had not wanted Jake to feel pressured into a decision simply for his sake.

Sitting up, Jake wrapped his hands around his little demitasse, frowned at the black liquid. "You think our bond can help him."

"Certainly. Your arrival inspired him to eat without excessive persuasion, then sparked him to react, not simply accept. As I told him, and as ironic as it may seem, his behavior tonight was a positive sign. For five days, he has done little but lie in bed or sit on the floor and stare at a wall. He would not speak at all until yesterday, or I would have had you sent for sooner. Today he quarreled with me: a definite improvement."

Jake was mildly amused to hear a Vulcan call a quarrel an improvement but, "You think my presence caused that?"

"Your presence and his medication."

"But if this bond has been there all along, why didn't it help him before?"

"Because it was dormant. That is why it had no effect on you. You would have been wholly unaware of it, unless he was near. For him, a dormant bond to an absent bondmate has been detrimental—part of the reason we have been unable to completely stabilize him. Yet I understand that since coming here, until three weeks ago, he has been perfectly functional. Your presence"—he paused, as if searching for the best word—"_centers_ him. When the bond is activated, it should be more effective yet. Tomorrow, I wish to attempt a mindmeld in order to activate it."

Jake stiffened; Solymi noticed. "It will not be invasive," he assured Jake. "I will not even be present unless you both wish it. It is usually a private matter, and Salene is more than capable even now of activating the bond himself."

A private matter.... Something abruptly occurred to Jake; he grinned. "I don't think it'll be necessary to activate it. I think it's probably active already. Maybe that's why my presence affected him so much today."

Solymi's eyes narrowed and he leaned forward, hand outstretched, fingers splayed slightly in preparation for a mind touch. "May I?" Jake hesitated. "This will be only momentary, and I will not examine your thoughts. I am a healer. My brothers inherited a talent for music. I inherited one for telepathy."

Jake nodded then, and Solymi's fingers connected with the side of his face. As promised, Jake barely felt the touch. Then Solymi was pulling his hand back, his face flushed dark bronze. "Of course," he muttered. "I have been obtuse. That...would have been sufficient, and you are correct. The bond is active."


	5. V

Jake was waked in the middle of the night by a pounding on his hotel door. He grabbed a robe and answered. Solymi, looking slightly ruffled, stood on the other side. "Hurry and dress. We are needed." And he turned back to his own room before Jake could ask questions.

While pulling on slacks and a shirt, Jake checked his chrono: three a.m., local time. Seven, his. Of course, he hadn't gotten to bed until after two his time in the first place.

Solymi was waiting for him in the hotel hallway and, without speaking, led Jake to the lift. Jake tried to ask questions, but Solymi raised a hand in objection, said only, "He is having a negative reaction to his medication."

They walked quickly; the hotel was not far from the hospital—three blocks. Jake said nothing lest he annoy Solymi with fretting. "You have a writer's imagination," Sarah had used to tell him. If he got the sniffles, he feared pneumonia; if he had an ache, he feared a tumor. But no catastrophes awaited their arrival at the hospital, though in some ways, what did await them was worse.

Salene was wandering the ward hallway, refusing to be led back to his room and casually shoving aside nurses and aids who tried to herd him in that direction. No one currently on duty had anywhere near his strength. He was talking a blue streak—in Vulcan—and appeared to be downright _cheerful_, in a manic kind of way: his eyes were bright, his cheeks and nose flushed, like a man tipsy on wine. When he saw Solymi, he called out his brother's name and came over to grip him by both arms. He was still talking but Jake couldn't understand a word, as much due to the speed of it as to the fact he spoke a foreign language and Jake had no universal translator. When he caught sight of Jake, he let go of his brother to hug Jake hard—in front of everyone. For a human, his actions would have been excessive. For a Vulcan, they were _bizarre_.

One of the nurses, a big strapping fellow whom Jake had just seen Salene shove casually into a cart, called out, "Dr. Solymi! Are we glad to see you." He came over to them. "He slept about three hours, then woke up, thought it was morning and started singing scales. We had a hell of a time convincing him it was still the middle of the night. He had to come out of his room to see...and now we can't get him back in there."

Solymi listened even while scanning his brother—who continued talking at Jake in Vulcan, gesturing emphatically. Jake shot Solymi a helpless glance. "What's he saying?"

Solymi's lips were thin. "He is discussing the woods used in ka'athyra construction." Snapping the scanner shut, he spoke to the nurse in a string of medicalese as indecipherable to Jake as Salene's Vulcan, then gripped his brother by the arm and said, "Let us try to return him to his room." Jake nodded. Salene seemed oblivious except to shift his attention from Jake—who wasn't answering him—back to Solymi. Solymi spoke to him, also in Vulcan, and pointed toward the room. Salene shook his head. Solymi said something else and Salene shrugged, then permitted Solymi to lead him back inside. The nurse and an aide followed, shut the door. The aide, Jake noticed, held a restrainer. Solymi had noticed as well.

"_That_ will not be necessary," he said, distaste in his voice. "He is merely over-stimulated."

"He bruised my arm," the nurse said.

"He did not do so intentionally. He has forgotten his strength."

For a wonder, Salene had stopped talking. Solymi maneuvered him to sit on the sofa and then took the hypo the nurse held out to him. Salene even bent his neck obligingly for the shot in the jugular. He definitely wasn't trying to be difficult; he was just confused and, as Solymi had said, over-stimulated. His behavior might have been rather amusing, had Jake been less embarrassed for him.

The hypo took almost immediate effect; Salene's eyelids drooped and he calmed. But whatever Solymi had given him did not knock him out. "Salene," his brother said, still kneeling in front of him. "Do you know where you are? Can you tell me the day and the time?"

Salene blinked, slowly. "Earth," he said, in English. He glanced at Jake, frowned. "I...don't know the time, or the day." He shook his head, as if to clear it. "I should know them, shouldn't I?" Then he sat up, glanced around. "Why can I not remember the time!"

"The time is three forty-six, a.m. You had a negative reaction to the perfluoxetine; I just administered a neutralizing agent and tranquilizer. Your senses will clear in another two minutes. We'll start over on your medication until we find a level that does not launch you into a manic episode."

Not knowing what else to do, Jake had moved into the background. Now, Solymi dismissed the nurse and the aide, then gestured Jake over. "Sit beside him and take his hand." Jake did so. Salene's skin was very, very warm—much more even than usual—and he was still flushed olive, but the wild look had faded from his eyes. He was back to that faint bewilderment Jake had seen earlier in the day. Jake reached up to smooth his hair; it was horribly tangled. "Doesn't someone around here comb this for him?"

"He has not, heretofore, permitted it," Solymi replied. He had risen to fetch a brush from the bathroom, handed it to Jake.

Salene closed his eyes while Jake began detangling the thick mass. Lamplight glittered on his cheeks; they were wet. He was _crying_. "Hey," Jake said, wiping at the tears. "It's okay now."

"It is not 'okay'!" Salene struck the brush out of Jake's hand. "It will never be 'okay'! I shamed myself yet again!"

"Salene—" His brother gestured for Jake to move, leaned in to set fingers on Salene's face. They were as still as statues for fifteen breaths; Jake picked up the brush. When they opened their eyes, Solymi nodded for Jake to continue combing Salene's hair.

Calmer now, Salene asked, "What did I do this time?" like a man who is not sure he wants the gory details.

"Not much," Solymi replied, an edge of humor in his voice. "You serenaded the floor for a while with scales, then wandered about the ward, arguing—in Vulcan—against the exclusive use of shaforr wood in ka'athyra construction."

Salene actually winced; Jake wondered if it was due to Solymi's recitation or if Jake had pulled his hair too hard. Solymi's teasing made Jake angry, but perhaps that subtle teasing was the way they had come to deal with it over the years. It was probably better, Jake conceded, than permitting Salene to get weepy. That would just mortify him later. "How much do you remember?" he asked his friend, thinking of the hug.

Salene shook his head. "Only flashes. When an episode is past, my memory of it runs together, and sometimes I hallucinate during them, and so am uncertain what is memory and what is fantasy." He glanced at Jake, then dropped his eyes. "I should apologize for my behavior earlier this evening, too. It was unduly hostile."

Jake gestured to Solymi. "Apologize to him, not me. It was him you were mean to."

Solymi settled himself on the carpet, shook his head. "There is no need for an apology to me, Jake; he knows it. We have been through this before."

Salene just nodded. "Solymi is...very tolerant of me."

"You are my brother."

And that, Jake thought, was as close as Vulcan siblings would come to saying, 'I love you.' It seemed to be understood. Jake saw Salene tap Solymi's foot lightly with the side of his own. Rising, Jake moved around to the back of the couch so he could better reach Salene's hair. Brushing it calmed Salene and gave Jake something constructive to do. Maybe that was why Solymi had brought him the brush in the first place. Solymi was, after all, a psychiatrist. Now, Solymi ran his scanner over his brother again. "The tranquilizer has taken effect; how do you feel?"

The use of 'feel' was, Jake thought, quite deliberate.

Salene seemed to consider. "Rather...blank, actually."

Solymi's eyebrow hopped; Jake wasn't sure if it was an expression of surprise or disappointment. Standing, he glanced at Jake. "Under the circumstances, I believe it would be optimal if you remained with my brother for the rest of the night. Is this agreeable to you?"

Jake shrugged. "I'll do whatever you think best."

Solymi nodded, looked down at Salene. "It will be necessary to take you back to Vulcan. We must re-evaluate your treatment."

"I know." Salene's voice sounded dull. "And you have other patients, as well."

Solymi glanced at Jake. Jake could feel him waiting, knew what he wanted. He would not ask; that would be imposition—but Jake recalled very well a long-ago conversation in his grandfather's restaurant in New Orleans, a conversation about duty and friendship. "I'll have to talk to Sarah," he said. "I have to make arrangements for Jenny."

"Jake," Salene began, "if you have obligations—"

"Shut up, t'hy'la." He used that word as deliberately as Solymi had used 'feel' earlier. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught Solymi start. "You need me."

"So does your daughter."

"She has a mother. I took care of her for eight months; I think Sarah owes me a week or two, to go to Vulcan."

"It may be somewhat more than that," Solymi warned.

Jake shrugged; he had suspected as much, but thought it best to take things one day at a time. "I'll talk to Sarah."

Solymi left them alone then. They did not speak more than a word or two after he was gone. Jake pulled around a chair and brushed Salene's hair until the tangles were gone and it flowed like cashmere through his fingers. Even then, he continued. It was hypnotic. Salene, he noticed, had fallen asleep, head back against the couch.

***

"Daaaaaddy!"

Jake's daughter came running, trailing hair and sound, and threw herself into his arms. He lifted her up, swung her around, kissed her forehead. "How's my girl?"

"You're back." Her mother approached more slowly, descending the stairs to the family room one step at a time, like a debutante making an entrance. Standing just inside the back door, Jake looked up at her and, for a moment, his body forgot that he wasn't married to her any more, that he didn't even like her much of the time. She had always been able to do that to him, wrench and twist him inside until he couldn't think straight.

They must have just gotten home; she was wearing her drafters jumpsuit. He could still remember the first time he had met her, dressed in that tight-fitting blue. He had come to her office for an interview on station living-conditions, had expected a middle-aged professor. She had walked in, introduced herself, perched her perfect body on a stool and started asking questions, making notations on her PADD. He had spent the next half hour weirdly hypnotized by the slip and slide of three gold bangles against her brown wrist; by the way blue fabric pulled taut over her breasts, hinting at nipples hardened by air-conditioning; by the way her pageboy had kept sliding into her face until she would sweep it back with a toss of her chin. He had wanted to put his hand up, touch that hair, brush it off her forehead. He had left convinced she must think him a total idiot. Three days later, she had called to ask if she could see him again. For a date, not an interview.

Now, she came forward to take Jenny from him. "We were just sitting down to eat. Do you want dinner?"

The question and the unexpected effect of her presence threw him off-stride. He took a breath, looked around. No need to rush into it. "Yeah, sure. What'd you program?" Sarah never cooked.

"Chirrasquiles and rice." She set Jenny in her high chair at the breakfast bar and gave her plain saffron rice wrapped in a tortilla. Jake sat beside his daughter. Sarah ordered two plates from the replicator, set one in front of him then sat down to her own.

It was strange-familiar, eating dinner as they had so many times before and listening to Jenny chatter—delighted to have her mommy and daddy at the same table again—but knowing he would get up at the end of it, put his plate in the replicator, and leave. Part of him did not want to. Part of him wanted to forget about obligations to a sick Vulcan who waited a continent away, just stay here, help Sarah get Jenny ready for bed, then follow her upstairs to the room they had once shared. Maybe they could repair this marriage. Sarah reached for the salt; three gold bangles slid down her wrist in a delicate jingle. It brought such a wave of poignant memory that his eyes darkened and, for a moment, he could neither see nor think. His body went hot, then cold; his fingers clinched on his fork.

He must have made some sound. "Jake?" she asked, studying him with that appraising look, as cold as ice-water on fevered flesh. It froze any whisper of old lust. For all Salene's cool control, he had never looked at Jake like that. His eyes were never cold like that.

"I'm fine," Jake said brusquely, took the salt when she was done with it. "I'm fine."

"So." She spoke into a pause in Jenny's chatter. "I assume you'll be by at your usual time tomorrow?"

Her question drove out the last remembered fondness lingering in the corners of his body. All business, his Sarah. She couldn't even be bothered to ask how Salene was.

"No," he replied, "I won't."

Taken by surprise, she dropped her fork. The sound made Jenny jump. They both glanced at their daughter. "Let's finish eating," he said. "I'll help you get her ready for bed, then we'll talk."

Scraping back her stool, Sarah stood. "No. We'll talk about it now. This is not going to become a habit, Jake Sisko. If you can't be responsible for our daughter—"

"I was responsible for our daughter for eight damn months!"

"Don't swear in front of Jenny Gwen."

"I didn't start this conversation! I suggested that we wait."

"Wait till when? Till it's too late—again—for me to find a babysitter for tomorrow?"

"I assumed you had one! I told you I didn't know for sure when I'd be back."

A crash of plate interrupted them; Jenny had pushed her dinner onto the floor. Rice went everywhere. "Mommy, Daddy don't yell! Mommy, Daddy don't yell!"

"Jenny!" Sarah screamed at her, then pulled at her own hair in frustration. "Oh, please, stop it! I can't take this!"

Chagrinned, Jake had knelt to pick up the plate, start cleaning up the mess. "Sit down, Sarah. We're upsetting her."

"I can't take this!" Sarah said again.

He looked up at her from the floor. "Sit down." Standing and stepping carefully over scattered yellow rice, he put the plate in the replicator, then came back to pick up his daughter, who was still wailing. He patted her back; she clung to him, face pressed into his neck. Sarah had sat and, elbows on the table, put her own face in her hands. The gold bangles on her arm winked in the kitchen overheads.

"Jake," she said, voice level, "I cannot take care of her alone—not any more than you could. You had your grandparents, and your friend, here to help you. I don't have anyone. She's your daughter, too. You can't foist all the work off on me. I'm the one who pays the bills. You have to do your share, too."

Sarah's little speech infuriated Jake as much as it humiliated him, but he clamped his mouth shut. Jenny had quit her loud crying but was still deeply upset, her little body shaking against him. He kissed her temple, smoothed her hair. "Shhh. Mommy and Daddy aren't mad at you, honey." He glared at his soon-to-be-ex-wife, said to her in as level a voice as he could manage. "When I left two days ago, I told you I didn't know when I'd be back and, knowing you, I'm sure you have someone lined up to watch Jenny tomorrow. You're nothing if not efficient, Sarah, so don't hand me the 'I can't find a sitter by tomorrow' line; I don't buy it. Now, we're going to put our daughter to bed, then talk about this like two rational people."

She dropped her hands, glared back at him, but nodded. It took a while to calm Jenny down; Jake gave her a bath and Sarah read to her. Finally, she was asleep and Sarah and Jake squared off in front of the old stove in the family room. Sensing tension, the cats had traded warmth for peace and fled.

Fists on hips, Sarah said, "Now—what is this all about?" She was a tall woman and did not have to look up at him much.

Jake frowned at his nails. "I need to go to Vulcan."

"_What_?"

"I need to go to Vulcan. Salene is very ill. I have to go back with him."

"Why does he need _you_?" she snapped.

This was where it got complicated; he didn't want to explain about the bond, or say precisely how Salene was sick. Luckily, Sarah was too self-focused to ask questions that didn't have to do with her. "I'm his friend and I owe him," Jake said.

"Until just recently, you hadn't _talked_ to this guy in how many years? When I called to find him here, you said it was the first time you'd seen him since before you'd gone to college! Now you say you owe him?"

"As you pointed out yourself, he came to help with Jenny when I needed it." So it was a lie, but Salene _had_ helped with Jenny. "I do owe him."

"Doesn't he have a wife to take care of him?"

"No, he doesn't."

Her look was skeptical. "I thought all Vulcans married."

"Not chi`pain, not often."

"Well what about his family? Don't tell me he's an orphan, too."

"Of course he has a family. But they're not all on the best of terms." He shifted. Why was he standing here trying to convince her he was right? She always did this to him: put him on the defense, made him feel like he had to justify himself. Just once, he wished she'd have said, 'Yes, Jake, of course you should.... I'm behind you one hundred percent.' He might not have divorced her, then. But she had always tried to run her affairs and his, too. At first, he'd put up with it because she had given his life direction and her drive had made her successful. He'd always admired her success. Still did. But now, her bossiness grated. "I'm going to Vulcan. He needs me; I'm going. I don't know how long it'll take—a month, maybe more."

"So you leave me holding the bag with Jenny!"

"I had her for eight months."

"You offered to keep her because you didn't want to come with me. I didn't ask you to do it!"

He frowned at the old black stove. "I didn't want Jenny to be stuck in contractor housing for half a year. You know how I feel about that." He turned his eyes back to her. "But the fact remains that I kept her for eight months while you were off at the edge of Romulan space, doing your thing. Now I need a month or so, to go to Vulcan to care for a friend. I didn't come here to debate that with you; I came to tell you I'd be gone."

Sarah had turned away to sit down on one of the love seats, stare at the stove. "What am I supposed to do with Jenny?"

"What'd you do with her for the past two days?"

"I had Isabelle or Larry keep her in their offices while I was teaching."

"What about daycare? I know the university offers it to staff. And there're my grandparents; you keep forgetting them."

"They're too old, Jake! And I don't want her in daycare. Not any more than you want her on space stations. But I can't—" She stopped, raised splayed hands and shook them in frustration, clenched them again. "Jake, I can't do this! You know I can't! For a few days—all right. But a month?"

He seated himself, tapped fingers on the arm of his old reading chair. He'd known Sarah would react badly to the notion of caring for Jenny alone for weeks, possibly months. She may have been the one to suggest having a baby in the first place, but her patience was finite. Day-in, day-out childcare overwhelmed her. He had always been the one to handle that.

"The other option," he said now, "is that I take her with me."

"To _Vulcan_? You won't take her to a human-made space station, but you'll take her to an alien world with high gravity, low oxygen and heat like that?"

He snorted. "Sarah, don't be dense. I've never insisted that Jenny be raised on _Earth_, but I don't want her to grow up like I did: bounced around from ship to ship, station to station. I loved my parents, but I hated growing up that way. Spending a month or two on Vulcan won't hurt her at this age."

"Spending half a year on a space station wouldn't have hurt her, either, at this age!"

He clenched his jaw and looked off. "And what about the next station? And the one after that?"

"How do you know there would be a next one? You assume a lot."

"I don't want to argue about it; it's past."

"No, you don't want to admit that you don't see this matter rationally. How do you know Jenny wouldn't like growing up on a space station? I did. You judge what you think's right for her based on what _you_ wanted. Vulcan is okay because it's a planet; Deep Space Seventeen wasn't because it's a station. My, that's logical!"

He stood up, paced around. "Look, do you want me to take her with me, or do you want to make arrangements yourself?"

"You're quick with the ultimatums lately, aren't you?"

"I'm sick of you always arguing with me about _every little damn detail_!"

"Oh, so I'm not allowed to protest if I don't like something? I should shut my mouth and meekly accept the dictates of my husband? This isn't Ferenginar, Jake! You listen to Nog too much."

He glared at her. The only way to avoid arguing with Sarah was just to refuse to argue. "Do you want me to take her or not?"

She sighed explosively. "No, I don't! I just got back after months of being without my daughter!" She stood up herself, stalked about restlessly, her back half to him. "But I can't take care of her by myself, either." She paused; the pause stretched. "If you took her, how long would you be gone?"

"I don't know. It could be a while—a month, two, maybe more—but if it's going to be long, I'll need to come back anyway to get things, and you can see her then."

"When are you leaving?"

"As soon as possible; Solymi—Salene's brother—has to get back. But I have to make arrangements to be gone. I told him it would take two or three days."

He saw her swipe at her eyes. "Give me the weekend. Then you can pick her up Monday morning. I'll have her things packed."

He nodded once, shortly. It would take him the extra day to make arrangements for Jenny, in any case. He wondered what Solymi would say about the unexpected addition of a three year old.

***

"What is necessary, is necessary." Solymi's image on the comm. screen appeared thoughtful. "It may in fact prove therapeutic for my brother. He appears to be...very fond...of your daughter."

"She's very fond of him, too. She was upset when he left." In fact, she'd been inconsolable for three days—a long time for her. "I just wasn't sure what you'd think about it, having her along, I mean."

Solymi shrugged; it was Salene's gesture. "It is not the optimal circumstance, perhaps, but as I said: what is necessary, is necessary. I recognize that you have obligations aside from those to my brother." He frowned slightly. "The family will make arrangements for her care, when you are unavailable."

Jake let out a breath and did not immediately reply. Solymi's response was so totally different from Sarah's that it momentarily threw him; he'd forgotten families could work together to solve problems instead of just complain when they cropped up. "Thanks," he said finally. "She's actually a pretty easy kid, and well-behaved, despite the disruption to her life lately."

Solymi's dark eyes studied him. "Children are resilient when they know they are cared for—and her father would appear to make an effort that she know she is."

The Vulcan version of a high compliment. "Thanks," he whispered, though after erupting at Sarah at dinner in front of Jenny, he wasn't sure he deserved it. "We'll return on Monday morning. I need to get a ticket for her as well as myself and—"

"It is taken care of."

"What?"

"Your passage has been arranged; I shall see to the child's as well."

Anger burned. "Solymi, I—"

"Salene said that you might prove difficult on this matter and, if that were the case, to remind you of a certain conversation regarding partnership?"

Jake snorted.

"Permit him this," Solymi added. "His pride is in need of it."

Put that way, Jake couldn't argue, and suspected Solymi knew it. "All right then. How is he?" Jake had worried about leaving Salene for even a few days but had decided he should talk to Sarah in person. So the morning after Salene's manic outburst, Solymi had spent a session determining how their bond affected them. Apparently each bond was as individual as the parties involved, its strength dependent on the length of time it had existed and the regular proximity of the partners to one another. Although theirs had lain between them for over eleven years, it had been nascent. In its active state, it was newborn and weak. Solymi had done his best to solidify it before Jake had left for Bellefonte.

Now, Solymi said, "He is well, or as much as may be expected. I increased his medication somewhat. I will lower it again when you return."

"Will we have to keep doing that? Measure what he needs to take by whether I'm with him or not?"

Solymi shook his head. "Unknown, but unlikely. The activation of a bond always has ramifications for a patient on antidepressant medication. The bond stimulates neurotransmitters in the brain, particularly serotonin. Once the bond has stabilized, so does the patient. Usually."

Solymi cocked his head and his expression took on that wry edge Jake had come to recognize meant he was going to say something mildly shocking, at least from a Vulcan point of view.

"According to research, lifebonds have been found to be critical to the psychological health of even mentally stable Vulcans. My brother should never have been permitted to become chi`pain in the first place since it meant dissolving his original bond."

Jake scratched his nose. "So you think your family was wrong?"

Solymi appeared uncomfortable. He shifted slightly in his seat. "I think they were ill-informed. No harm to Salene was intended, but that does not mean no harm was inflicted. I have my...questions...about the practice of castration—though less about the castration itself than about the traditions surrounding it."

"And that's why you support the bond between us, even though it's not socially acceptable?" He had wondered.

Solymi did not reply immediately. He steepled his fingers and leaned back in the chair before the comm, glanced off once—perhaps at a door—then returned his attention to Jake. "A comm link is not the best medium over which to discuss this. Suffice to say that, given my brother's affective preferences as well as his artistic interests and talents, his selection of you as a bondmate was a logical one."

Jake supposed that could be translated as 'I'm not surprised that he fell in love with you.'

Solymi bent forward, finger on the terminate-switch. "I will see both you and your daughter Monday morning. Peace, Jake Sisko." And he cut their connection.

Jake sat in front of the blank screen and thought a while about what Solymi had told him and how carefully the words had been couched. He thought, too, about what Salene himself had said regarding their relationship: 'as long as certain illusions are maintained....' Keeping up appearances. It was all a game of keeping up appearances.

Sudden anger flashed through him, left him weak. How could appearances be worth a man's sanity?


	6. VI

Hell, Jake decided, was a four day space-liner trip with a three year old. The last time Jenny had been on a ship, she'd been only six months old; Jake and Sarah had taken her to visit her grandparents on DS9. That trip had been longer but Jenny had been a good deal smaller and had slept through much of it. Now, he devoutly wished she was six months old again, or that Solymi would give her a tranquilizer.

Jake had her by himself. Salene was lodged with his brother. Solymi had decided that, while Jenny's presence might be therapeutic for Salene in small doses, continual cramped exposure to her would only increase his anxiety. Anxiety seemed to go hand-in-hand with depression: 'co-morbidity' Solymi called it. Salene was as prone to panic attacks as he was to spells of major depression and, in short, having Jenny around all the time would have sent him right up a wall. Although, when Jake was feeling frazzled and uncharitable, he had to admit that seeing a Vulcan hanging from the ceiling might be funny.

The evening of the third day, Solymi came by to tap on Jake's cabin door. An unstrung Jake let him in. Jenny was in a rebellious mood because Jake refused to let her run up and down the hallway like a wild thing. Now, she dashed over to grab Solymi's pantleg and pipe, "I'm a wild thing! Daddy says so! I'll eat you up!"

Jake sighed and started to remind her not to touch Solymi—he wasn't Salene—but Solymi looked down at her, blinked and asked, "And will you roar a terrible roar and gnash your terrible teeth and roll your terrible eyes and show your terrible claws?"

That sent her off squealing with laughter and bouncing on her trundle bunk. "You've read that book?" Jake asked, astonished.

Solymi walked over to lift Jenny easily; she kicked and giggled and squirmed in his grasp. "She-who-will-be-my-wife specializes in early childhood education. WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE is a favorite among Vulcan children as well as Terran, I must confess. I understand that T'Var's THREE SHELLS has become something of a classic among Terrans?" He looked at Jenny, who still squirmed. "Vulcan children can be 'wild things' from time to time...particularly at her age. There is a word in Vulcan: shultah. It means a dust devil, but also a 'wild child.'"

He raised Jenny up over his head and back down; she screamed in laughter and shouted, "Again, again!"

He did it again and her peals echoed off the walls, then he turned his attention to Jake while she attached herself to his back like a small leech. "I believe it would be beneficient for you to spend some time with my brother. Therefore, I have decided to take her for a walk around the ship to exaust her energy, then put her to bed for you. You have three hours, barring an emergency." And he left with Jenny still clinging to his back. Jake wondered if giving an exact time was just Vulcan precision, or if Solymi was trying to tell him something.

He found Salene sitting up on a cot, reading—reading Jake's latest novel revisions in fact. "I feel like I've been let out of prison," Jake said, then added, "Your brother's good with kids."

Salene nodded. "He is." Setting aside the PADD, he patted the cot beside him. Jake sat, leaned his head back against the wall. "To be in such limited space," Salene went on, "with little to do, must be difficult for her." He picked up the stuffed animal which had been sitting beside his pillow. "But she is a generous child." She had 'given' Salene the orca—her favorite—when she and Jake had boarded. 'She sleep with you and make you feel better!' Salene had solemnly accepted and did, in fact, keep the animal near the bed for Jenny's sake. Now he set it back down, turned to Jake. His alto-bell voice was subdued. "I must apologize for being unable to assist you more."

"Don't—" Jake said. "I don't expect it. We both know she'd drive you nuts right now."

Frowning down at his hands, Salene nodded. He still had that fragile sense about him, but not as much as before. He had gotten up today, dressed, seen to personal hygene. He'd apparently been able to concentrate enough to read some. Reaching out, Jake ran a hand into his hair. It had been combed, but left unbraided; it fell to his waist. Salene turned his head into Jake's palm and Jake opened his arms, let Salene rest against him. They had done this a few times in the hospital: always silent, the vulnerability too fragile to break with words. It was not an erotic embrace; Salene needed whatever steadiness their bond permitted him to find in Jake. But it had never gone on long, Salene always pulling away after just a few minutes. This time, he did not and, growing a bit stiff and uncomfortable, Jake tried to shift.

Salene moved, twisting to stretch out on the cot, pull Jake down after. Jake held Salene loosely, wondering where this was going and thinking about Solymi's precise delineation of the time they would have. Their feet hung off the cot-end. Salene's eyes were closed; he ran a hand up and down Jake's side. Tentatively, Jake leaned in to kiss his mouth; he accepted it, answered by putting his hand on Jake's face. Jake wanted kisses, Salene wanted a mindmeld.

They did not, quite, have sex. Salene was unable to maintain any erection and Jake's came and went. They took off their clothes, then cuddled next to one another for a couple hours, sharing thoughts and simple physical affection: more an expression of intimacy and trust than desire. Sometimes they dozed. When their time was up, Jake said, "I guess I should go rescue Solymi," and slid out of bed to dress himself. Salene offered fore and middle fingers. Jake wrapped his hand around them. "Good night."

"Sleep well."

Miraculously, Jenny was out cold when Jake returned; Solymi sat meditating in a corner. His eyes snapped open. Nothing in his face or manner gave the slightest hint that he suspected what had happened next door, but he had to know. He had, more or less, set it up. That deliberate evasion irritated Jake. "Did he ask you to get lost for a couple hours," Jake said, "or was it your idea?"

Solymi did not quite smile but amusement pulled the corners of his eyes. "He suggested that you might welcome some relief from child care. I deduced the rest."

"It doesn't bother you? The two of us?" He had gathered that Solymi was tolerant, but tonight had gone beyond mere tolerance.

Solymi glanced at Jenny, to be certain she slept. "It is who he is." He seemed to be struggling with how to say something, or whether to say it at all. "I wish for my brother to be...content."

Translated: I want him to be happy. Jake nodded, shoved his hands in his pockets. "Do you think his homosexuality has anything to do with his depression?"

"I am unclear as to precisely what you are asking." Solymi's tone went icy. "Do you mean to suggest that my brother is homosexual because he is mentally ill?"

Jake waved a hand and shook his head. "No. The opposite. I wondered if the disapproval may have made him depressed." Belatedly, Jake realized that to a Vulcan, the suggestion of emotional responses could be interpreted as just as much an insult.

But Solymi appeared only thoughtful. "Possible, but unable to be determined. My brother's depression is biological—that is, and as I said before, his neurotransmitters do not function correctly. The problem can be corrected with proper medication, whereupon he is as 'normal' as you or I. Yet there is clear evidence that a connection exists between the emotions and the body—among Vulcans as much as among humans. How this functions precisely is a matter of debate." His eyebrows hopped. "Of _much_ debate. All I can say is that my brother's depression was diagnosed when he was young, long before he gave the family any indication that his...preferences...were atypical. Of course, it is also true that one's orientation is fixed young, so it may be that a subconscious perception of social disapproval for his equally subconscious preferences triggered a biological predisposition to depression—"

"But you find that unlikely," Jake finished.

"Indeed. What is more likely is that social disapproval has complicated an already existing condition." He tilted his head. "Psychology is rarely simple, Jake Sisko. I sincerely doubt there is a _causal_ connection between my brother's sexual orientation and his depression, but that is not the same as saying they do not affect one another. I would be astonished if they did not."

It was a little peculiar to hear a Vulcan talk so analytically about emotions without trying to deny that Vulcans had them. Jake would have loved to know what Solymi thought of Vulcan philosophy, generally, but now was not the time to ask. "Thanks for watching Jenny. I hope she didn't give you much trouble."

"None at all, and you are welcome. It was my pleasure. Truly." He gave a little bow—very like his brother—and departed.

***

By the next day, Salene had perked up enough not only to get out of bed and dress, but to join his brother, Jake and Jenny for breakfast. Jenny was ecstatic, clinging to him and bouncing up and down in excitement. She had not been permitted to see him more than a few minutes here and there and Jake had not realized how much she had missed him. Neither, apparently, had he. Jake could tell he was touched. He picked her up and carried her all the way to the ship replimat despite second looks from fellow Vulcan passengers. While he was occupied with helping her pick her breakfast from the menu, Jake said in an undertone to Solymi, "He seems a lot better."

Solymi nodded. "Somewhat."

"Does my presence really help him that much?"

"Joining us for breakfast is not particularly stressful." His voice was dry. "But yes, your presence is quite beneficial." He flipped through the menu, made his selection. "It is difficult for non-Vulcans to understand how critical our bonds are. The proximity and physical touch of a bondmate is...stabilizing. This is why some Vulcan cultures encourage interaction between bonded pairs even prior to marriage." He picked up his plate from the replicator and went to join his brother, who was seating Jenny in a child's chair at a table.

In fact, breakfast turned out to be almost more than Salene could take. Jake could see how he fidgeted constantly with his utensils or made a very precise business out of eating his meal one serving at a time in measured spoonfuls, as if his salvation lay in organized, exacting movement. A parody of Vulcan control. Put simply, he was strung out.

Solymi watched him carefully but said nothing. Returning from the replimat, Jake dropped back to walk beside Solymi and say—out of Salene's hearing, he hoped—"Too much medication?"

Solymi nodded faintly. "Imagine a tub of water for which you must maintain a given water level by adjusting faucet strength even while the drain is open and more water comes from a second faucet over which you have no control. That is what I am attempting to do with his serotonin levels. It will take time." He paused, then added, so softly Jake could barely hear. "In addition, we shall arrive at Space Central in seven hours, seventeen minutes. There is the matter of our family...." He trailed off.

In other words, Salene was just plain nervous about going home.

***

Vulcan Space Central was _the_ main terminal in this section of space, busier even than Earth's. Jake had heard Kassidy the freighter captain say that she would rather put in to Vulcan's Space Central than any other. "Better organized." So there were a wide variety of aliens, but Jake was more interested in the Vulcans.

He had never seen so many. They did not, as a rule, travel much. Now, he tried to keep from staring, and to keep Jenny from doing so, too. "Lots of pointy ears!" she whispered, giggling. She had never gotten over her fascination with Salene's ears; Jake suspected she had a bit of a crush on him. More, she hadn't had much exposure to other races, so her eyes were as wide as saucers, trying to take it all in. He was more circumspect.

Like humans, Vulcans came in enormous ethnic variety and, like humans, tended to run the melanin gamut from cafe latte to Salene's tan to white. There were few black Vulcans, which struck him as peculiar. But then, Vulcan's sun was orange, so maybe that had something to do with it.

The architecture itself surprised him more than the variety of Vulcans. It all felt slightly _off_—the same sense DS9 had given him when he had first arrived there. Vulcans built in curves. Doorways were arches, circular counters sat in the middle of walkways instead of along the side, even the corners curved instead of turning sharply. Glass in a variety of colors accented the decor, along with plants. He had assumed that Vulcan would lack foliage. Maybe it did, planetside. Here was another story. Plants and fountains filled empty space. On a desert world, he guessed both were symbols of prosperity.

The fountains were more than Jenny could resist. When he turned his back for an instant to pick up his luggage, she darted off. He ran her to ground by a star-shaped fountain. She had both hands in the water, chasing the fish—and looked ready to climb in herself. "Oh, no you don't," he said, snatching her up from behind.

Several Vulcans had turned away and Jake wondered if Jenny had inadvertently broken a taboo. Then he saw one woman put a hand over her mouth. Not offense. Amusement. He remembered what Solymi had said. "My shultah," he told the woman.

She pulled down her hand and nodded. "Indeed."

Swinging Jenny up to his hip, he headed back to where Salene and Solymi waited with the luggage.

They were no longer alone. A young woman of the same ethnic type as their mother had joined them. A cousin? They all turned at Jake's approach. "Where was she?" Salene asked.

"Chasing fish in a fountain. Well, not quite _in_ the fountain yet, but she would have been given another minute."

"Yellow fishes!" Jenny declared. "Pretty fishes!"

They didn't laugh; they were Vulcans. But they managed to convey that impression all the same. Vulcans might not make jokes, but they certainly did recognize the comic and were not above pointing it out, on occasion.

Now, Solymi turned to the newcomer and held out fore and middle fingers. She touched them with her own. It was a ritual gesture made sweet by gentleness. "She-who-will-be-my-wife: Ismene." Solymi's expression was bland, but his eyes told Jake that he was head-over-heels in love with the girl. And she with him, from the looks of it.

"Jake Sisko," Jake said, turning just enough to shift Jenny forward. "And my daughter, Jennifer Gwendolyn."

Ismene nodded to him and to Jenny as well. There was something electric about her and though her face altered not at all, she seemed to radiate warmth. "Did you like the yellow fish?" she asked Jenny, who nodded shyly. "Would you like to see some green and silver ones?"

That got Jenny instantly over her shyness. "Yes, yes!"

Ismene held out her hand. "Come with me then." Jenny squirmed out of Jake's arms and Ismene glanced at her betrothed. "We shall meet you shuttleside: Shul disk, gate thirty." And they walked off, Jenny's hand in Ismene's, Ismene asking a string of questions about the yellow fish.

"Boy, she knew just what buttons to push with Jenny."

Jake could have sworn Solymi stood two inches taller from pride. "As I said on the liner, she-who-will-be-my-wife specializes in early childhood education." Salene, standing out of Solymi's sight behind, gave his brother a fondly exasperated glance which Jake read clearly as, And _you_ just think she dropped straight from heaven. It was such a human expression, Jake bit his tongue to keep from laughing.

***

They did not go to Salene's apartment, which would have been too small for Jenny and Jake, too. Solymi took them to the home in which he and Salene had grown up.

It was not, precisely, a house. It was a crafter's shop with a large residence area above. They parked the flitter on the roof and went downstairs, Solymi leading with Ismene behind, then Salene, a tired Jenny in his arms. He had insisted on carrying her in the heat and gravity and thinner air. Jake was doing well to carry himself despite the TriOx shot Solymi had given him. And this was but morning in T'lingShar. "You will accustom yourself to it, in a few days," Solymi had said. Jake hoped so; he was dying, Jenny not much better—a little wilted flower, head drooping on Salene's shoulder. Jake would have to be sure she drank enough fluids.

It was cooler inside, and Vulcans built with stone to maximize the effect. Wide, low windows let in stray breezes and electronic bugscreens kept out insects. The upper hall was dim. But then, all of Vulcan seemed dim to Jake. Dim and stark. Red sky, orange sun, dun desert rock, brown mountain ridges and brown wadi-cut plain. On the shuttle, Jake had stared out the port window in amazement. If not for the obviously modern and highly urbanized sprawl of T'lingShar growing beneath, he would have sworn the area uninhabited and uninhabitable. Odd, how much better one understood a people when one had seen their world.

Now, he peered down the shadowed hall; it ended in a balcony overlooking the shop proper. Soft sounds, work sounds, came from below. There was no chatter. The quiet blanketed so profoundly that Jake could hear the tap-tap of their footsteps, and the pretty alien tinkle of windchimes dangling in windows. Even Jenny was subdued, as if lulled by the calm. When the four adults and single child reached the balcony banister, everyone in the shop looked up—then stood: an act of profound respect.

Eccentric and prodigal, mentally ill...Salene was nevertheless _chi`pain_. Jake had forgotten just what that meant. Solymi and Ismene drew back to leave him revealed at the rail forefront, Jenny still in his arms. Jake's impression was of a king surveying his subjects. But it wasn't arrogance in his posture. It went deeper, ran darker: the summer king who is also royal victim. He bore the horrible burden of their expectations, rising from his own astonishing gift. They would kill him with their honoring. Involuntarily, Jake shuddered.

Jenny saved them all. With the innocent self-centeredness of a child, she assumed they were greeting _her_. Grinning, she waved down on them from her perch in Salene's arms. "We're here! I saw yellow fishes and green and shiny ones, too!"

Once again Jake got the impression of unvoiced laughter, and the stiff moment dissolved. Luthiers returned to their work, though two figures—a pale man and dark woman—left off to meet the five of them as they descended the spiraling staircase. Solymi was greeted with easy informality, but the two halted awkwardly before Salene. The woman reached up to brush the curve of his cheek—a mother's gesture—then to peer in wonder at the child in the arms of her castrated son. "Jenny Gwen," Salene said, "this is my mother. And this," Salene nodded to the man, "is my father."

Back to the shy she had shown initially with Ismene, Jenny wrapped her arms about Salene's neck and hid her face in his shoulder. She gave not so much as a peep. Neither did Salene's parents, but whether from disapproval or plain astonishment at the display of familiarity between her and their son, Jake couldn't say.

Salene turned to Jake. His eyes were dark with all the strain he kept off his face. Involuntarily, protectively, Jake took a step forward. "And this," Salene said, "is her father: Jake Sisko."

It wasn't just Salene's parents who studied him then. Every eye in the place must have turned his way for an instant; they pierced his back like a dozen swords.

They all knew. Salene had made no declaration, had called Jake nothing more than Jenny Gwen's father, but apparently, every person in that shop knew who Jake Sisko was to Salene ch'Sethan.

***

Vulcans gossiped. Oh, they did it sideways and with innuendo, but gossip was gossip. Over the next few days, Jake received quite an education in Vulcan realities versus Vulcan myths. It seemed that Salene had been a topic of no little interest in the crafter's quarter of T'lingShar. Neighbors invented excuses to visit Sethan's shop now that Salene was home. Jake might not have recognized curiosity as their motive had Salene not remarked on it—acidly in fact, if a Vulcan could be said to speak acidly of anything.

The two of them shared a set of rooms, if not a bed. Vulcans had no such thing as double beds, so Jake and Salene slept on individual cots in small alcoves off a single sitting area. Even so, Jake was surprised that Salene's parents would acknowledge the relationship that far. They were clearly uncomfortable with it, as were some of the others living there. Jake wasn't clear yet on the kin connections of everyone under Sethan's roof. There seemed to be an uncle, and a pair of cousins, all of whom worked in the shop. By contrast, Solymi did not live at home; he had his own flat. In fact, Jake discovered rather by accident that Ismene and Solymi lived together.

Jake had gone to see Solymi. Salene wasn't dealing well with his return—he spent most of his time in their room and most of that in bed—so Jake took a shunt to Solymi's flat in the old city to ask what, if anything, to do about it. Solymi wasn't home; Ismene was.

She had been working on some kind of class project that involved finger paint. Her hands were covered with primary colors and she had a bright blue smudge across her nose. With her short-short hair, it made her look like a child herself and Jake was tempted to rub blue from her face, but refrained. Salene had warned him that, except for emergencies, an adult male didn't touch an adult female who wasn't his bondmate. Jake had not once seen Salene touch Ismene, though their easy manner with one another said they were close. So now, Jake just pointed to his own nose, said, "You, uh, have a streak here—"

She reached up to wipe at it. It smeared. Jake laughed, and could have sworn that, for just an instant, she smiled back. "Have a seat," she said. "Let me go clean up." Then she disappeared into the back room.

Jake looked around. Solymi's flat was small. There was an outer sitting room, a kitchen area, and what appeared to be a back office with fresher and the usual sleeping cubicles off of it. Two cubicles. That was when Jake looked more closely and began to see evidence of Ismene's permanent presence: a pair of women's shoes discarded in the corner; a bookshelf with children's books—the paper kind one opened to look at flatpics; an ivory throw made of a filigree lace, like tatting. There were two chairs at the table and, from what he could see, two desks in the back office; two neat piles of notes and package mail lay on the counter beside a set of silver bracelets and earrings—different earrings from the ones Ismene was currently wearing.

Was this why Solymi treated Salene tolerantly? Because he bucked tradition himself by living with his fiancée? But maybe Jake was making wrong assumptions about Vulcan morality. No doubt, there was some "logical" reason for the arrangement. He grinned. Vulcans could argue for anything with logic.

She came back out, took the other chair at the table, folded her hands—now clean except around the nails—on the top and just looked at him. But even when Ismene sat Vulcan quiet she still radiated that same electric vitality he had encountered among Terran preschool teachers, and he wondered if it was a requirement for the profession. Then again, given how Jenny could run him ragged, it probably took that kind of spunk to keep up with a classroom full of them. Children were energy vampires, sucking vigor out of the adults around them.

"We've got to get Salene out of that shop," Jake said now without preamble. "It's driving him crazy. He won't come downstairs because there's always someone dropping by. He's convinced they're coming to ...well, not spy on him, but to put an eye to the keyhole, I guess."

She tilted her head, clearly confused by the metaphor.

"Snooping," he said. It didn't get him anywhere; she just shook her head. "Trying to find out what's none of their business."

"Ah. An invasion of his privacy." She sighed, unlaced her hands and ran one through her hair, ruffling its neat lines. "I fear even our people can be guilty of curiosity about those who attain social prominence."

"Royalty-watching." He tended to forget his friend was _famous_, just like he forgot his father was the Emissary, and Worf and Dax were Federation ambassadors now. He'd spent his whole life around people of significance; the shine had worn off a long time ago.

"None would go so far as to ask personal questions," Ismene explained, "but they will...be aware...of what transpires in my father-in-law's home."

"And talk about Salene behind his back."

She just lowered her eyes as if to accept personal responsibility for this fault shown by others of her race. Vulcans did that, traded on an overblown sense of community sin. It drove him nuts.

He sighed. "I'm thinking that, even if his flat is small, it still might be better to stay there than at the shop."

"Impossible." Her voice left no room for argument. "His flat is no bigger than this—" she indicated the sitting area behind them. "One room in the chi`pain dormitory. For a single individual, it was sufficient. For two men and their three-year-old daughter, it would be impractical." She leaned back. "It may, however, be time to consider alternate housing. Much depends on you."

"On _me_?" But his mind was still back on the 'their daughter' part. He wasn't sure what he thought of that phrasing. "How does it depend on me?"

Tilting her head again, she asked simply, "Do you intend to stay with him permanently?"

"I— Yeah. Yeah, I do." He realized that the decision had been made in small increments somewhere over the past few months. He had known it was permanent the first night they had spent together—his later rage at Salene not withstanding.

Now, she shrugged. "Then perhaps it is time for him to consider moving out of the dormitory and into a family dwelling. He need only apply to the T'lingShar Housing Authority."

"They'd _give_ him a house? Just like that? Doesn't he have to, well, buy one? And what about the fact he's not married?"

"No one would ask such questions, Jake Sisko; it would constitute a serious breach of his privacy. As for giving versus buying—Vulcan property laws do not match Terran. Our single-person or single-family private dwellings are community owned. All Vulcan citizens have a right to appropriate housing. It is assumed that one does not request what is not needed. Nor would this be a house, as you think of it. The only 'houses' on Vulcan belong to clans, not people. He would receive a larger flat; that is all." She stopped, leaned in a little, said, "You are troubled." It wasn't a question.

He got up and paced. "This is moving kind of fast."

"But you indicated—"

"I know what I indicated! And I meant it. I do intend to stay with him. But we haven't had much chance to talk about the future. We'd just started to, before— Well, before the whole mess that ended up with him...like he is now. But there's a lot more to it than just me deciding that I want to stay with him. There's my daughter. I don't know how much Solymi told you about my situation—?"

"He explained that you are newly divorced."

"Yes, well, her mother and I plan to share custody. But if I'm living on Vulcan, that'd be a bit hard—"

"Jake," she interrupted. "Did you expect Salene to live on _Earth_? What of his music?"

"I know, I know!" Frustrated, Jake made a cutting motion with his hand. "Believe it or not, I've thought of that. I've thought a lot about everything, in the past week or so. I can write anywhere, I guess. But nothing's ever that simple, is it? Salene needs to stay on Vulcan, at least some of the time. But Sarah's going to want Jenny on Earth." He ran a hand over his face, glared out the sitting room window. It overlooked a park with more fountains. Vulcans and their fountains.

"Now you see why I haven't tried discussing any of this with him yet," Jake said. "He doesn't need one more thing to worry about. Or, well—you know what I mean."

"What makes you believe he has not also considered the matter?"

Jake looked over at her.

"I would suggest that you _do_ discuss it with him. There is nothing wrong with Salene's intelligence, and this is a decision which the two of you must make together. You cannot make it for him—nor would he appreciate it if you tried. He dislikes being 'protected.'"

She stood, crossed to face him. "Go back to the shop, Jake. Talk with him. He is the one to whom you need to speak—not Solymi."

Jake just nodded, turned for the door, but paused before leaving. "Forgive me if this is a bad question, but I need to know. What's the business with Saserna?"

He watched her face close down in that way unique to Vulcans: the distant stare and a total evaporation of even the slightest facial expression. "It is well you asked me instead of one of them." But she shook her head. "It may be something you need to know but— Not now, Jake. I cannot discuss the matter now. Suffice to say that Saserna's is a name better not spoken of to either Solymi or Salene."

She opened the door for him, a polite way of telling him it was time to go. "Ask me later; I will attempt to explain matters, later."


	7. VII

Salene had taken Jenny out into the little cul-de-sac courtyard beside his father's shop, the first time since his arrival that he had left the building. Yet Jake had gone into the old city and someone had to entertain the child; it was no hardship, though sometimes her energy and the shrillness of her voice grated too much. Today, she was in a pleasant mood, bringing him "treasures" which she had discovered: a pretty rock laced with pink quartz, someone's lost earring, a red and white tira on a leaf. "Beetle bug!" she crowed, in Standard.

"Tira," he told her, in Vulcan. "Tira-da kor shaen." The red-winged beetle. "Ate! Is-shaar." Be careful! They bite. She almost dropped it in fear and he had to steady her arm, shake his head. "Ita na-bo, ita se-na-baes se." Don't hurt it and it won't hurt you. "S'kya-iss na-faar de na-i'shae." Now, return it to where it belongs.

With almost exaggerated care, she returned the tira to the bush where she had found it.

"Father told me that you treated her as if she were your own."

Every muscle in Salene's body froze, then went weak in a flash. It was fortunate that he was sitting, as it saved him the ignobility of having to do so. He turned his head. The figure was a dark shadow outlined by the sun.

Saserna stepped out of the direct light and came around to face Salene. Jenny had come back over, too, to see the visitor. Nervous, she crawled into Salene's lap and squeezed up close against his chest. He held her there like a shield. "What do you want?"

Saserna did not answer immediately, as others were passing on the thoroughfare beyond. Instead, he sat down on the decorative stone opposite Salene's and, in silence, watched the two of them. Jenny had burrowed even closer to Salene and stuck her thumb in her mouth: her gesture of anxiety, and he wondered if she was somehow able to sense his own? He forced himself to hold her less tightly.

Finally, Saserna spoke. "I came to say two things to you. First, I will not sing with you again, individually or as a member of a choir. Nor will I sing in any festival to which you, also, have been invited."

"Is there a logical reason for this, or mere pusillanimity?"

Eyes narrow, Saserna said, "Given that you cannot comport yourself as befits a Vulcan, to permit you to continue exploiting your status as chi`pain is a disgrace. I will not sing with you because, in my opinion, you should not be permitted to sing at all."

Salene's breath went out as if knocked. "My comportment differs little from that of several of my colleagues. Even you cannot be that blind, Saserna. Seven months ago, you deigned to perform with Talek who, I might point out, shares his flat with sopranist T'Gaylin—a woman elsewhere married and no kin of his—"

"Silence!"

Jenny jumped in Salene's arms and made a hiccuping sound like a sob. Salene hushed her and stroked her braids.

"You speak what is not to be spoken," Saserna said in a softer voice.

"And you, my honored brother, are a hypocrite."

"Neither T'Gaylin nor Talek are my kin. It is not my place to chastise them. You, however, are another matter. When you insist on shaming the family, I cannot ignore it. Silence would be interpreted as my tacit approval."

"And we certainly cannot have it thought that you might approve of anything I do."

"Your sarcasm is unvulcan and your assumptions are faulty. There is much about you that I did approve, once. Or have you forgotten that you would not exist if not for my encouragement and cooperation?"

Salene's restive temper stirred and he leashed it, refusing to give Saserna one more matter for which to criticize him. "Oh—I would still exist. And so would my children."

Saserna snorted softly. "I was referring to your career, as you well know. I did not insist that you undergo the operation. You were the one who asked for it—demanded it in fact."

"But you certainly did not mind naming a brother among the chi`pain. All I had to do was tell you that I was considering it and from that time on, you talked to me of nothing else but the honor of the guild. You readily submitted yourself to a fertility test and promised me a child of your begetting. No obstacle could be permitted to stand in my way! Yes, I asked for it; I think I did even wish for it, though I have occasionally wondered how much of my wishing was merely a product of yours. Yet in the end, it was not _you_ who went under the knife."

"I was never offered the opportunity."

"And so I was the one cut, because you were not offered the opportunity."

"Do not oversimplify, Salene. We both know that you had reasons of your own for making your choice."

"But even those reasons originated with you. It was you who suggested that undergoing the operation would eliminate desire along with pon farr." He tilted his head. "You were wrong, you realize."

"Perhaps. But it is _you_ who chose to act on impulses no longer demanded by biology, rather than properly deconstructing the emotional complex. That displays your own appalling lack of discipline.

"Which brings me to my second point," he added before Salene could interrupt. "You spoke earlier of my promise to provide you with a child. Although it requires me to break a sworn promise, I cannot, in good conscience, give a child to be raised by a man who is mentally unstable." He glanced at Jenny on Salene's lap. "Whether you should be permitted to participate in her upbringing is questionable but"—he stood to brush sand from his pants—"perhaps your rampant emotionalism will not harm a human child."

For some moments, Salene could not speak. He had known this must come, had known that, promises not withstanding, Saserna would find any excuse possible to avoid fulfilling his oath. That did not lessen the shock of hearing it bluntly stated. He pressed his chin against Jenny's head.

"It is not my illness which is your reason," he said finally. "It is your disapproval of my attachments. Do not lie."

"I have not lied. I said 'mental instability.' I consider your...attachments...to be perfect evidence of that instability, and of your consequent unsuitability to raise a child. You are sick, Salene. You should be institutionalized where you could be properly cared for instead of being permitted to disrupt the family constantly with your whims and relapses. Our brother does you no kindness by pretending that you will ever be able to lead a normal life." Turning on his heel, he walked away.

Salene sat a long time, Jenny in his lap. Sensing his upset, she patted and petted his face. Stop it!, he wanted to shout, but held his tongue. Finally, he managed, "Jenny Gwen—go in to my mother and stay with her until your father returns."

"But you unhappy."

"Go now!"

She scrambled off his lap and backed away. Guilt slammed into him; he had never before spoken so roughly to her. Perhaps Saserna was correct and he could not be trusted with her upbringing. He was not normal and never would be. She should not be exposed to him.

"Go," he said more softly.

Without another word, she spun and disappeared into the shop.

Rising, he walked out of the cul-de-sac garden into the street. Pedestrians passed. Flitters whipped by overhead, the sound of their engines a soft hum. He walked. It had been over a year since he had simply walked the streets of his home. There was pleasure in it, in the quiet organization of building architecture offset by the green interruption of parks and fountains, the tranquility of meditation halls open to the air. It was a welcome change from Earth's noise, yet—oddly—he missed the Terran bustle.

He headed for the city walls, and the ruins beyond: the ancient city outside the new. Parts of it had been incorporated into modern T'lingShar, but much spread west and north: a march of great stone columns and the fallen stone figures of Vulcan kings and magistrates millennia dead.

> Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown  
> And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,  
> Tell that its sculptor well those passions read  
> Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things...  
> "My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:  
> Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"  
> Nothing besides remains....  
> The lone and level sands stretch far away.

Outside the west gate, he bent to touch a marble face, pockmarked by time and lichen. No name was left to be read; all that remained was the arrogance. Men who would be gods. They had nearly destroyed his world with their bloodletting and their drive for everlasting renown, like Achilles at Troy—trading a long life of peace for a short life and undying fame. Yet their names had been forgotten, erased by time and desert sand and the indifference of history.

Salene stood. Ozymandias. Achilles. Terran poetry and Terran heroes—he had been around Jake too long. Yet it was clear his own did not want him. 'You should be institutionalized...,' Saserna had said. If they could lock him away, they would not have to be reminded of the embarrassment.

He set out across the Little Sand for the ruins proper: remains from Vulcan's passionate, violent past. He walked alone; it was mid-afternoon and most people had more sense than to cross the Little Sand in this heat. He had come without water or headdress or suitable shoes for hiking. But in a little while, none of that would matter.

The courtyard he sought lay on the edge of the ruins, facing out onto the flat expanse of the Greater Sand. T'lingShar's desert was unusual. Most of Vulcan was rocky red floor and wadi. The Negev, not the Sahara, Jake had called it. Salene would not know. T'lingShar, however, sat at the edge of one of the great dune deserts.

Turning back from the yellow expanse, he crossed a courtyard of cracked tile towards the bloodstone altar at the center, ran his hand over its moist, green surface. Sun on cool stone surface condensed what little moisture was in the air, made the rock damp as if with a morbid memory of the blood spilled here: tens of thousands murdered, Surak among them. Not religious sacrifice. Political sacrifice—for expedience, fear, power, or the insatiable pursuit of perfection.

His people had not changed much in two thousand years. They still sacrificed the marginal and deformed for the sake of fear, or expedience—or perfection. His own brother would gladly sacrifice him.

Fingers outspread, he stared at the contrast of living flesh and inanimate rock. Blood-green stone, bone-white marble, passion-red sky above. Lifting his hand, he pressed damp skin to his lips, tasted mineral-bitter moistness, then bent down to the small groove on the stone's right side, removed the obsidian knife. It was left here for pilgrims come to remember what they had once been, and could be again if not for the wisdom of Surak and the rigorous discipline which chained the bloodlust hiding at the core of the Vulcan soul. Pilgrims let their own blood now, instead of that of others, dripped it onto the thirsty stone to mingle with water and memory.

But for those like him who lacked the control to be properly Vulcan? All the blood in the world could not erase his imperfections, so he would give all the blood he had.

He touched the edge of the stone knife; it cut his thumb. He bared his wrists, then set the point to the big vein. In the midday heat, with no water, the dying would not take long. Let them find him here, their modern sacrifice.

But he did not cut. He stared long and hard at the dark bronze vein under brown skin. Grand gestures and grand passions, suitable for Vulcan's past, not Vulcan's present. If he did this, would he be any different from the toppled stone faces? Their fame had ended in obscurity; their descendants had forgotten them. He was not Achilles, or Jake's Orpheus. He was tired of tragedy, tired of being their willing victim; he would not sing that role today.

Wrist unmarked, he slipped the knife back into its sheltering niche and turned his face into the sudden wind which had come up. It smelled of rain. Clouds boiled in over the mountain ridge and the red sky arced with lightening. Wind whipped harder, pressing his loose tunic to his body. He stared, fascinated. Then the heavens opened and the rain came down, drenching him in moments. Raising his arms, he lifted his face into it.

***

"Where have you _been_? My god, you're soaking wet!"

Salene peeled off his tunic, then trousers. Even his underwrap was damp. He dropped that. "I was caught in the downpour."

"Obviously!" Jake went to snatch a blanket from Salene's bed. On arriving here, Jake had expressed surprise at finding blankets on the beds—until his first night. Now, he enveloped Salene in heavy felt and rubbed Salene's arms through the fabric. "You idiot. Where'd you go?"

"To the ruins."

"_Why_?" He frowned; still rubbing Salene warm. "I was worried about you."

You had cause to be, Salene thought, but did not say. Telling Jake what he had nearly done would only disturb his friend needlessly.

After a minute, Jake added, "Jenny said someone came to visit and upset you. She couldn't tell us who."

"Saserna."

Jake stopped, looked up at him. "What'd he want?"

Salene stepped out of Jake's grasp, turned away. He did not wish to discuss it.

"What'd he want, Salene?"

Salene shook his head.

Jake walked around to face him. "Where'd you go, this afternoon? And don't just say 'the ruins'. You were gone for hours."

"I walked out," he said, "then was caught by the storm. It took hours before it was safe to return."

"What were you _doing_ out there, though?"

Humans did not know when to stop. "That is my business. Some matters are private."

Snorting softly, Jake said, "Yeah? Well, you scared me." His voice was rising. "I walked around looking for you, then when I couldn't find you, I beeped Solymi and started calling hospitals—"

Touched and annoyed both, Salene set a hand on Jake's shoulder. "Shhh. I am here now." Had he gone through with his plan, what would it have done to Jake? He would have left Jake alone again, as he had eleven years ago. That was selfish—and cowardly. "I am here now," he said again, held out fore and middle fingers to Jake, who wrapped his hand around them.

A light scratching on the door interrupted. "That must be Ismene with Jenny." Jake moved to answer. "She said she'd watch her." As soon as the door was opened, the child exploded into the room, chattering about the park they had visited—then she saw Salene and stopped in her tracks.

The last time he had spoken to her, he had snapped. He knelt down to her level, blanket trailing the floor, started to apologize but did not have the chance before she threw herself into his arms.

It had never occurred to him that she, also, might have been scared. Securing the blanket, he lifted her up and she wrapped arms around his neck, gave him her wet kisses.

Ismene's expression betrayed her amusement. She handed Jenny's diaper bag over to Jake. The change in Jenny's surroundings had set back her toilet training. "She behaved?" Jake asked.

"Indeed. Although her main concern was as you can see—" she nodded to Salene with Jenny in his arms. "Keeping her sufficiently distracted was somewhat challenging."

She had been speaking to Jake but her eyes had not left Salene. She would not ask; she would wait for him to tell her. In the doorway behind, Solymi appeared.

"I went to the west ruins," Salene said.

"To the courtyard?" Solymi asked.

Salene just nodded. Solymi would know; it was not the first time Salene had fled to the bloodstone.

"I looked there," Solymi said now.

"The rain drove me to find a cave."

"Ah. You came back this time."

"Indeed. I had...obligations."

Solymi nodded. "You do." He glanced at Ismene. "Come." They left, shut the door behind.

"What was that all about?" Jake asked, approaching. "What courtyard?"

Salene twisted his neck to see Jenny's face where she had laid her head on his shoulder. She smiled at him around the thumb in her mouth. Beautiful child. "There is a courtyard in the ruins; I visited it."

Jake snorted, probably frustrated by the vagueness of that answer. "What _did_ Saserna say to you?"

Salene eyed him. "Persistent."

"Well, it makes me mad when you won't tell me things!"

"Shhh." Salene laid a finger over Jake's lips.

Frowning, Jake pulled back. "Then tell me what he said!"

"He said that he would not sing with me again."

"He came all the way down to the shop just to say _that_?"

"'All the way down to the shop'? Jake, he and his family live in the housing complex across the street."

Jake blinked. "Why haven't I seen him then?"

"He will not enter the premises while I am present, nor permit his family to do so. At least he has not demanded that our parents choose between us." He paused. "No doubt, he was waiting to catch me alone outside."

"The son of a bitch!"

"Jake—enough." He handed Jenny to her father. "It is time for dinner, and I must dress."

They did not speak of the matter again until Jenny was asleep. Salene had hoped that Jake would not pursue it, but Jake possessed a very human doggedness regarding some matters. Salene was preparing for bed himself—his afternoon exertion had tired him—when Jake appeared in the fresher doorway behind. He moved Salene's hands and braided Salene's hair for him. "What else did he say?"

"Who?"

"You know who. Don't play dense. Even if he just lives across the street, I still can't believe he'd seek you out after avoiding you like the plague for the past week, only to say he wasn't going to sing with you again. And I can't believe that would upset you enough to go running off to the desert."

"'Upset,' Jake?"

"Jenny said you were upset; don't try to pretend you weren't." He paused, tied off the end of the braid. "I asked some questions after dinner, when you weren't around. You used to run off to that courtyard all the time; once, you tried to kill yourself there." His hands gripped Salene's arms, turned him around. "That's what you went to do this afternoon, wasn't it? You went off in sandals. Your mother said nobody crosses the Little Sand in _sandals_." Jake's face was hard. "You weren't planning to come back."

"But I did come back," Salene pointed out.

His own shoulders slumping, Jake let Salene go. "I used to be jealous of you for having brothers—did you know? My dad has two brothers and a sister. I never had any."

"Having siblings is not always a...blessing."

Jake was studying a dried flower arrangement on the bathing room counter. "Yeah. But I remember from before, when we were younger—it was always _Saserna_ you talked about then. Never Solymi. It wasn't Solymi you were close to." He turned his eyes back to Salene. "What happened?"

Salene stepped around him. "I do not wish to discuss it."

Jake grabbed his arm, pulled him about. "Don't do that to me! You're the one who lectured me about 'partners' sharing things. Okay, it's time to share. I need to know about your family, dammit. I'm trying to understand you, and you're not helping me any. What did Saserna say to you this afternoon, and why does he hate you so much?"

Salene pulled his arm free, rubbed it. "He does not hate me. He...disapproves...of me." Leaning against the jamb, he told Jake about his conversation with Saserna. Jake was right—he did need to know. But Salene's telling only succeeded in angering Jake.

"Damn him!" Jake hit his fist against the stone wall.

Salene grabbed the fist before he could hit twice. "Stop! That is why I did not wish to tell you. Anger is not productive."

"Neither's killing yourself." Then Jake shoved the bruised fist in his mouth and walked away to sit down on the sofa.

"Agreed," Salene replied. "Which is why I am still living."

Jake studied him a moment, then said, "Okay. But dammit, promise me there won't be a next time. I can't take it, wondering if I'm going to get a call from a morgue some day, asking me to come down and identify a body."

Sighing, Salene sat down by Jake, raised his hands and stared at them. "I cannot promise. Saserna was correct; I am ill, and when the darkness comes, it is hard to remember what it is to be normal. The best I can promise is that I will try." He clenched fingers, glanced toward Jake's cubicle where Jenny slept. "I wish to see her grow up, among other things. That is what I meant when I told Solymi that I have obligations, obligations I did not have before. But I cannot promise I will never relapse. Most likely, I will; most likely, this condition will plague me for the rest of my life. I will understand, however, if you cannot live with that uncertainty. And Saserna may be correct that I should not be involved in Jenny's upbringing."

"Saserna is full of shit."

The words made Salene start and glance over at Jake, who was not looking at him. "Sorry if that makes you mad, but he makes me mad." Then Jake rubbed his forehead. "Look, I know the depression isn't going to go away, and I can deal with that. There are things to do about it, and you do improve. You're a lot better now than even this morning."

"I made decisions about myself, this afternoon," Salene admitted.

Jake nodded. "I guess it just scares me, not knowing what you're going to do next."

The sound of his voice—strained but trying to be calm—moved Salene. "I am not so unpredictable as that. My illness follows a pattern. When I am in the midst of an episode, I am, quite literally, too depressed to do anything at all. It is as I become better that there is a danger, and not always then. I have been put on a suicide watch before. Solymi did not order one this time because he did not believe it necessary."

"Until Saserna showed up."

"Yes."

Jake gripped his hand, said after a moment, "We should get out of this house. It's not doing you any good, and I don't like it that he's sitting across the street, watching. I don't want him coming after you again."

Salene felt his lips twitch. "He will not. He has said all that he intends to; he will not...harass...me, Jake. That would not be Vulcan, and above all, Saserna is concerned with appearing _Vulcan_. Your protectiveness, while appreciated, is unnecessary."

"I don't know—"

Salene laid a finger over Jake's lips. "Unnecessary."

They fell silent then. Salene leaned back against the couch cushions and watched Jake, who sat with elbows on knees, hands clasped and brow furrowed, thinking. At times like this, Salene found it difficult to keep from touching him, seeking out the bright spark of his thoughts. It was hard to believe that he was _permitted_ to touch, that Jake was his bondmate. For all the grief this pairing had brought, their connection was nothing short of miraculous to Salene. After a moment, he set his palm on Jake's back and rubbed his thumb against thin cream fabric. Jake twisted to look and whatever he saw in Salene's face made him settle his back against Salene's side. Belly shaking, Salene wrapped arms around him. They stayed that way a while.

There were forms of mental touch besides the mindmeld. Bondmates shared a subconscious awareness of one another. For bondmates who had shared physical intimacy, that awareness was stronger, and touch heightened it yet more, as if mental fingers could brush inside the skin. When Salene let himself hold Jake, he did not feel different, or lonely, or depressed. For a little while, he could step out of himself, exist in Never-Neverland—or perhaps, exist in the most real place of all: human communion. His heart spilled over bright with it.

He was aware, though, that Jake was in need of sexual release. His friend had been patient, holding himself back, afraid to press Salene—but humans were not Vulcans, and Jake was no eunuch. Salene understood desire, but felt it as an undifferentiated pressure in his chest and gut as much as in his loins: shaking tenderness rather than pressing need. Yet, a telepath, he knew it was different for Jake.

He rubbed his thumb over the nape of Jake's neck, then pressed his mouth to the raised curve of vertebrae. Jake shuddered. "Hey!"

"Shhh," Salene interrupted.

Nervous perhaps, Jake laughed high. "Salene! I don't think you know what that does to me."

Salene blew against the exposed brown skin above the brown band collar. _I do know,_ he said into Jake's mind.


	8. VIII

Salene wondered if Jake could be trained out of his tendency to take up most of whatever bed he slept in. Salene's cot was scarcely large enough to accommodate two, and certainly not if one insisted on sprawling on his stomach over three-quarters of it. Accommodating three was out of the question. Yet when Jenny pulled herself over Salene's chest to wedge her body between his and Jake's, he did not have the resolve to tell her to go back to her own bed. Oblivious, Jake slept on. She wiggled up to push her nose against Salene's and giggle. "You 'wake!" If she was surprised to find him in bed with her father, she gave no indication.

"Yes," he whispered back, then put a finger over his lips, nodded at Jake's back. Wordlessly, she snuggled down so that he was nearly pushed off the cot altogether. He would most definitely have to see to new sleeping arrangements. This was untenable.

Nevertheless lying with Jake's daughter tucked in his arm, he felt content—even optimistic—for the first time in weeks. If Saserna had sought to unsettle him, he had failed spectacularly. But perhaps it was unfair to assume a hostile motive on Saserna's part; he had only come to say what Salene had known for some time that he would, what Salene himself had set in motion the day he had left Vulcan for Earth four and a half months ago. But really, there had been no choice. The link with Jake was vital to his soul. As vital as music.

Abruptly, he sat up, startling Jenny a little, but she had been growing restless in any case, squirming against him. She sat up, too. "We go eat breakfast?"

Slipping from beneath the blankets, he dragged on tunic and trousers, recalling belatedly that humans kept different modesty codes. Jenny, however, appeared undisturbed. Perhaps young children did not much notice. "I shall feed you breakfast, yes," he said. "Then I am going to practice."

He hadn't sung since falling ill.

They ate quickly; after, she insisted on following him down to the practice rooms where he settled her in a corner with one of the educational toys Ismene had loaned them. While on Earth, she had often listened to him practice and was surprisingly well-behaved, not interrupting too often to demand his attention.

Now, he sang a few warm-up exercises, then simple pieces which fell in the low and middle end of his range, only gradually working up to the high notes. His voice was rough with disuse, and he muffed the high appoggiaturas, but it was extremely satisfying to _sing_ once again. A knock on the door interrupted him twenty-two minutes into his practice. It was Jake. "You're singing!" he said when Salene let him in.

"Indeed."

"Daddydaddy!" Jenny plowed into Jake. "Look!" She held up the nearly completed hologrid. She had been attempting to match colored geometric shapes to their appropriate slot. When she succeeded, she was rewarded by blinking lights in the plastic piece. It had vastly improved her shape recognition in a single week.

Jake knelt. "Very good, honey." They continued to discuss the toy. Salene returned to his music, paging through the display screen. After a moment, he sensed Jake step up behind, wrap arms around his shoulders and kiss the side of his face; Salene stiffened. "What's wrong?" Jake asked.

Glancing at Jenny who, involved in her toy, ignored them both, he said, "The child."

"So?"

"Not in front of the child."

Jake let him go to walk around and face him. He was frowning. "What's the problem?"

"I told you before. Public displays—"

"This isn't exactly public!"

Salene dropped his eyes to the music. "Nonetheless. The child is present. It is not done."

"You hug her."

"That is different."

"Oh, please!" Jake threw up his hands, then reached out to switch off Salene's display stand. Annoyed, Salene glanced up. "You let her get in bed with us this morning."

"I thought you were asleep—"

"It's hard to sleep with the wiggleworm digging her toes into my back. And like I said, you let her get in with us; this isn't any different."

Salene lowered his eyes, turned the stand back on. "Perhaps. I am still...uncomfortable with it."

"Listen," Jake said softly, moving up beside him to grip his arm. "I think it's important for her to see us touch one another. Children need to know their parents love each other, as well as love them."

Salene stiffened again. "I am not her parent." Tension sent his voice tight and high: a eunuch's voice. He hated the sound of it.

"You are her parent," Jake said.

Spinning, Salene glared at Jake. "Don't—!"

"You know I wouldn't. Not about that, ever."

Salene trembled with the attempt to contain his emotions: hope and humiliation in equal measure.

"You're my partner, aren't you?" Jake asked softly. "That makes you her parent—if you want to be."

"She has a mother."

"And now, two fathers."

Tearing away, Salene fled the room, stalked out to sit on a stone in the courtyard, fingers pressed to his temples.

Two fathers.

Saserna had taken away Salene's opportunity to be a father. Jake had returned it. But was it right? Jenny had two parents already. He was an interloper.

Steps in the doorway made him look up, afraid it was Jake. It was not. His mother stood there. "Salene?"

"I am well."

She came out to join him on the stone, fold her hands in her lap. "You may be well, but I believe you are also troubled." It was an invitation.

Leaning over to rest elbows on knees, he steepled his hands and pressed thumbs to his lips. She waited. Though she had no music, she had always understood him best. Solymi understood him also, but from a learned expertise. He and his mother shared an artist's soul. "The child," he said finally.

"Mmmm."

"She is not mine, yet Jake calls me her parent. I do not wish to replace her mother."

"Is that what Jake asked of you? To be a replacement?"

"No."

"So." There was a long silence, then she said, "Traditional family arrangements do not always suit, nor are they necessarily to be preferred. There are more important considerations than a genetic relationship, or lack of one, between a parent and child. Anyone fertile can produce offspring. To be a parent is something else again." She stood. "Perhaps, my son, you should consider what it means to be a parent before you decide that you are not one. To the rest of us, the truth of the matter was self-evident from the day that you arrived here with the child in your arms. Sometimes parents and children choose each other."

She returned inside and he sat a while longer, mulling over what she had said, then rose himself to go upstairs to the room he shared with Jake Sisko. Jake was there, working at something on a PADD; not far away, Jenny built a tower from couch pillows, then hopped on them, toppling them with a squeal. He paused in the door and watched them both a moment.

Perhaps sensing his presence, Jake looked up, stood abruptly. "Your mother said to leave you—"

"I...needed to think."

"I didn't mean to insult you, or hurt you—"

Salene held up a hand. "I know."

Jenny had seen him enter but continued with her pillow game, now trying to belly-flop on them instead. She was likely to bruise her chin on the floor. He scooped her up and carried her, giggling, to a place on the cushion-denuded couch, sat her down on the one remaining cushion, then knelt in front of her. Her giggles petered off, as if she could sense the seriousness of his mood. Jake had come over to sit on the floor with his back against the couch front, watching Salene's face. Salene met his eyes. "Did you mean what you said, in the practice room?"

"Of course I did."

Salene nodded, then looked at Jenny. "On Vulcan," he told her, "children were sometimes raised by people who did not give them birth." Confused, she tilted her head. How did one explain the concept of fosterage versus genetic parenthood to a three year old? He tried again. "Sometimes a child had foster-parents: people who cared for the child even if they were not related to him or her."

She still looked utterly confused. Jake was grinning. "You're talking over her head."

Snorting delicately in frustration, Salene said, "How would you explain this?"

Hauling Jenny off the couch, Jake tickled her. She squirmed and giggled in his lap. After a minute, he tugged on her ears. "No points."

She giggled again. "No points!"

He touched his own ears. "No points."

"No points!" she agreed.

Reaching over, Jake tugged on Salene's ears. Salene tried not to be offended. "Points."

Jenny bounced up, grinning. "Pointy-ears!"

Then Jake held up his arm beside hers. "Brown skin like Daddy's."

"Yup."

He touched her nose. "Daddy's nose, too." She giggled. "See, you look like Daddy because Mommy and Daddy made you from our bodies, and you grew in Mommy's tummy until you were big enough to come out—like Nancy's babies last summer, remember? So you look like us just like two of Nancy's kittens were grey because Nancy is grey. You're _related_ to us. That's what related means." He glanced at Salene. "You're not related to Salene in the same way. He's a Vulcan and you're a human."

She actually appeared somewhat disappointed by that. "I won't grow pointy-ears?"

"No, no pointy-ears. Yours will stay round."

She sighed. Jake grinned, looked up at Salene. "Apparently, she hoped they might change."

"Apparently."

Jake looked back down at her. "Sometimes mommies and daddies can't raise the babies that they make themselves. So other people adopt the babies and raise them instead. They become the new mommies and daddies, even if they aren't _related_ to the babies."

"They love them just as much?"

"They love them just as much."

"Why didn't the mommies and daddies who made them keep them?"

"Sometimes they can't. Sometimes the mommies and daddies stop living together—like your mommy and daddy. And sometimes, those mommies and daddies fall in love with new people and live with them instead; the new people become step-mommies and step-daddies. They aren't related to the babies, but they love them just as much as if they had helped to make them."

Jenny Gwen was not a slow child. Salene could see her little mind working, looking from Jake to him, making connections. "You and mommy don't live together no more."

"No," Jake agreed.

"You live with Salene."

"That's right."

"So you love Salene now."

"That's right."

She looked directly at Salene then. "You won't go away from Daddy?"

"I will not go away," he promised, wondering if she assumed Jake had left Sarah because Sarah had 'gone away' to a space station.

"Then you my step-daddy!" she said.

"In a manner of speaking. I am your de'ab." He glanced at Jake. "It means foster-father...a title somewhat more appropriate, perhaps."

"De'ab," Jenny repeated. "De'ab Salene!"

"Just de'ab."

"De'ab!" Abruptly, she transferred laps, leaping at him; he caught her. "Two daddies! One mommy, two daddies!"

Jake grinned at Salene. "Told you."

She had a strangle-hold on his neck. "I hope," he said, "that she does not find a wealth of parents to be an embarrassment."

"I doubt it. To her at this age, it just means more presents at Christmas."

***

"What are you doing?" someone shouted over the high grind of drilled metal.

Salene shut off the drill and raised the face guard to look up at Solymi standing in the back-room door of the new family-sized flat for which Salene had applied last week. It was not far from the flat which Solymi shared with Ismene. "I am attempting to conjoin the two cots."

Shutting the door, Solymi walked over to squat beside him. "To what end?"

"It is a human custom to share a bed."

"Ah." Solymi rubbed the bridge of his nose. "You do not find that...intrusive?"

"One grows accustomed to it." Lowering his mask again, he returned to his work, drilled a second hole in the metal frame and slipped a staple in to seal it. Several of these along the side and legs should suffice.

They were quiet a while then, Solymi watching Salene finish the joined cot. Like Jake, Solymi was utterly incompetent with machinery. Ismene was little better and Salene was the one called upon to repair anything in their flat which required a knowledge of tools greater than a hand-laser. At last, Solymi said, "Your disposition has improved remarkably. I do believe that we have found the correct medication balance—one far lower, I might point out, than you needed before."

"Indeed." Salene stood, nodding for his brother to take the other side of the cot. Together they flipped it right-side-up and pushed it against the far wall between the former sleep-cubicles. Jake planned to use the cubicles for storage, or a closet. Jenny had her own room here. At the moment, the two of them were out looking for a child's bed. "So, you consider me sufficiently recovered to return to Earth?" he asked, looked up in time to catch the surprise on Solymi's face. "Apparently not."

Solymi sat down in front of Salene's computer. "I believe it somewhat premature for that. Yes, your medication seems at last to be measured correctly, but only three weeks have passed since your return to Vulcan and except for the incident with Saserna, you have suffered no stressful situation. I wish more time to pass, Salene."

Suppressing a sigh, Salene propped himself on the edge of the matressless bedframe. "Jake is anxious to return to Earth," he said. Solymi raised an eyebrow. Salene crossed his arms. "He cannot keep the child away from Sarah indefinitely; they had agreed to share custody."

"I see. But what would be the point of your going to Earth?"

Salene blinked. Of course Solymi would not understand. "I had meant to return to Earth on a semi-permanent basis."

"But what of your music?"

Salene permitted the edge of a smile to lift his mouth. "Earth does have music, brother. In any case, I am as yet unready to return to performance. Frankly, I'm out of practice. When I do return, it hardly matters where my abode of permanent residence is, does it?"

"You and I both know that it would place a significant strain on your career, were you to reside on Earth."

Salene nodded. "Hence, this apartment. Perhaps we shall live in two places, or at least I shall. If Jake chooses to live on Vulcan, he would likely see far less of his daughter. Sarah might even be awarded full custody with Jake granted only visiting rights; there is still a bias towards a child remaining with the mother. I cannot ask him to sacrifice his role in his daughter's life for my sake."

"So you sacrifice your music."

"No." Solymi was occasionally obtuse. "There are many possible venues for performance. In the past, I have been somewhat...elitist. Pride masked is still pride, a sin to which our people are rather especially prone, no?" Solymi's eyebrow flickered. "If I sing a child to sleep, is that any less worthy than if I draw an audience to its feet? Both are a gift of music."

Solymi nodded solemnly, then his eyes glinted. "So you will sing opera?"

"I will _not_ sing opera."

Even across the room, Salene could sense the mental bubble of Solymi's amusement. After a moment, Salene added, "There is another reason that Jake should return to Earth soon. Sarah is, as far as I am aware, still ignorant of my arrangement with Jake."

"You believe it would be a problem?"

"I am uncertain. But she must be told."

Solymi rubbed the bridge of his nose again, considering. "Then perhaps it is time to test whether your bond has stabilized. Let Jake return to Earth with Jenny while you remain here. I would prefer to monitor you the first time you are separated from him by a significant distance."

Salene nodded. "That will be acceptable."

***

"You think I should _what_? Salene!" Jake let Jenny down to the floor along with her latest acquisition: a glitter-streamer. She could make it spin out behind her when she ran, which she proceeded to do: round and round the two of them. Jake ignored her. "We planned to go to Earth together, to go house-hunting—if you still want a house."

Jake sounded defensive. He was the one who deeply wished a house but Salene was not adverse to the idea, and understood Jake's need. "We can seek a house at another time, or you alone might look while there. This is an experiment which my brother wishes to conduct to determine whether the bond has stabilized between us." Jenny was still running in circles; irritated, Salene reached out to catch her and hold her still. She wailed and twisted against his arm.

"I'm not sure I like the idea," Jake said, then put hands over his ears. "God! Just let her go!"

"You know that is unwise." Salene knelt down to pull Jenny about to face him. "Stop," he said to her. "This accomplishes nothing."

She continued to scream, was working herself up to a point of upset past reason.

"Salene!" Jake said, loudly. "You're making her worse!"

"Go in the bedroom, then," Salene replied.

Jake hesitated, then stomped off, muttering under his breath about checking his messages. It was clear that he was as irritated with Salene for pushing the matter as with Jenny for her behavior. Consistency in Jenny's discipline was not Jake's strong point. For the most part, she was an easy child but when she decided to be difficult—such as now—she had learned that she could often get her way by raising the decibel level of her protests. Salene intended to put an end to that.

She was still twisting in his grasp, kicking at him and screaming at the top of her voice. If she were a Vulcan child, he would simply meld with her to calm her. Humans required more finesse. "Jenny Gwen," he said in Vulcan, "that is not acceptable. I realize that you feel anger towards me, but kicking is for dreba, not children. When you cease fighting, I shall release you."

She kicked again, but weakly, and quit screaming. He let her go. She wiped her eyes and glared at him. "You're not my friend!"

He ignored that. "You know perfectly well that running is for outdoors. It will not be tolerated in the flat; neither will screaming. I believe you need to think this over in time out."

"No!"

"'No' is not an option." He picked her up, removed the glitter-streamer from her clenched fist, and sat her down against the wall between two as-yet-unpacked boxes. She pouted and refused to look at him. Fatherhood had its unpleasant aspects.

He left her there a few minutes to calm herself before sitting down to talk with her about where she could play with the glitter-streamer, and where she could not. Then he let her return to her room. Jake had come out of theirs, rubbing his eyes. "I wish I knew how you can manage her when she gets like that. She hurts my ears."

Salene regarded him wryly. "And mine. But it must be done."

"I can tell which of us is going to be the disciplinarian." He sat down on their new couch. "As for me going to Earth to talk to Sarah—it doesn't look like I'll have to."

"No?"

"I just got a message from her. She says she has a new space station assignment and wants to know if I can keep Jenny another four months." His smile was bitter. "I knew this would happen, once she took the first one. I wonder who's going to feed the cats."

Salene sat down beside him. "It was a recorded message?"

"Yeah."

"When will you tell her about our arrangement?"

"I don't know. When she gets back, I guess. I need to do it in person, I think."

"So you said before." Salene considered. "Perhaps you should travel to meet her at the station instead. I am certain that she would be glad of the chance to see her daughter."

Jake thought about it. "Maybe. We'll see. I'll have to wait till she gets there, first. She's already left Earth." He snorted. "As for Jenny, Sarah prefers to have her on her own terms. She likes the _idea_ of being a mother better than she likes being one. When Jenny's inconvenient, she leaves her to me."

Salene, who had surmised that already, said nothing.


	9. IX

After almost two years offstage, Salene had resubmitted his name to the concertmaster of the chi`pain guild just last week. There had been a few moments of blank-screened wait during which he had wondered if perhaps Saserna had managed to poison the guild against him, then the concertmaster had reappeared. Would Salene be ready to sing with the choir by the Rain Festival? Would he be able to solo? How soon could he return to conservatory rehearsals? To touring?

So. Saserna had not won. Heart light in his side, Salene had answered the concertmaster's questions, promised to attend rehearsals, and given the concertmaster his new address so that he might be sent copies of the music. If he was not ready yet for a trip to Earth or the stress of touring, he did need to stretch himself, and to sing for more than four walls, Jake Sisko, and a child.

He would attend his first rehearsal that evening. Now, he opened the folder of festival music to practice, flipped through it on his display stand and hummed parts to himself. The majority of the pieces were known to him already. Fortunate, as the festival was less than a month away. He scrolled down to Salet's "She'taar na-korr," the aria which the concertmaster wished for him to solo. The coloratura in the middle section was diabolical, with places which required him to go without breathing for a full minute.

Opening his mouth, he intoned the first note of the aria, let it crescendo until it echoed off the walls, until it swallowed him whole. He lost himself then to the melody.

To sing was to open his soul to the first music, the primal music which curled like an unborn child at the center of the universe. The golden embryo. Sometimes—especially when he sang the old hymns—he felt less that he made music than that he released it from somewhere deep inside him, from a place where living began and ended. To sing was joy. Perhaps he should have been ashamed by such an emotional response but when the music sank claws into him and lifted him out of himself, he found it difficult to be ashamed of anything. His one regret had been that he had no one to sing with, no harmony to press his against, bear him up, meld him to another in a unity of sound.

Jake could not sing. He could, more or less, carry a tune, but that was not singing. Salene was unsure Jake quite understood why it mattered. Writing was a solitary art. Even when Jake sought Salene's opinion or input, in the end, he returned to his PADD and chose how to incorporate that input—or not—alone. And he seemed content with that. A continual solo. Salene needed harmony.

He heard steps enter the room behind: Jake's saunter. Bringing the musical phrase to an end, he turned.

"I love to hear you sing," Jake said.

Salene bowed his head in reply. If Jake could not sing with him, at least he could appreciate the music. And it did please Salene to please him.

"I came to tell you that I'm headed out for a while," Jake went on. "Jenny's in her bedroom. Do you mind keeping an eye on her?"

"Not at all."

"I'll be back in an hour or two."

Salene just nodded. He never asked Jake where he went on these walks. He had once, only to have Jake reply evasively, "Around." Salene had not pressed; Vulcans understood the need for some privacy with one's own thoughts.

Salene finished his practice, then went into the kitchen to order lunch for Jenny. Convincing her to come eat it was more difficult. She was engrossed in building something with blocks and had her father's ability to exclude the world when she wished. even a banana and peanut butter sandwich was not sufficient temptation for her to leave the task unfinished. He finally gave up and sat down with her, coaxing her into an explanation of what she was fashioning. It fascinated him, the way her child's mind worked.

The chime rang. Odd; he had been expecting no visitors. Leaving Jenny to her creation, he went to see who had come to call, opened the door to find Sarah Fernandez.

"Where's Jake?" she asked before he could offer even a ritual welcome.

"He left one hour, ten minutes ago for a walk."

"With Jenny Gwen?"

"No, she is here with me."

She shoved past him. "He left her with you?"

The stress she placed on the last word concerned him. "Yes," he replied. "It is hardly the first time."

"Damn him! Where'd he go then?"

"I do not know; he did not say."

"And you didn't _ask_?"

Before he could answer, Jenny came out of her bedroom, face all smiles for her mother. Sarah swept her up and held her close a moment, eyes closed. "At least she's all right."

Completely baffled now, he replied, "Of course she is. Why would she not be?"

Sarah opened her eyes to glare at him. "Your brother sent me a message four days ago." Salene frowned; Solymi had said nothing of contacting Sarah Fernandez. But Sarah was still speaking. "I'd just got to the space station and I had a message waiting for me." Her voice was rising. "He told me all about your so-called _illness_. You're not sick at all. You're crazy. And Jake brought my daughter here with you. He even leaves her with you without telling you where he's going!"

He understood then. She did not mean Solymi. She meant Saserna. Salene could well imagine what Saserna had said.

"I am not 'crazy.'" The word tasted sour in the mouth, though he had used it of himself now and then. "I have a condition called major depressive disorder. I take medication for it. At present, it is in remission, and Jenny is in no danger in my care."

"That's not what your brother said. He won't even let you near his children."

Salene could not deny it; he felt his lips thin. She continued to glare at him. "Where're my daughter's things?"

"In her room."

"_Her_ room?" She moved past him, stalked down the hall to glance into both sleep rooms, saw the joined cots in his and Jake's, the sheets still mussed where Jake had not made it up after rising that morning. She looked back at him. "Oh." The sound was small and startled, her face blanched pale. "I understand now. I understand everything." Still carrying Jenny, she advanced on him, paleness giving way to a flush. "How long has this affair been going on? A year? Two?"

He did not follow. "Affair?"

"Don't play dense with me, Vulcan!" She struck his chest with her free hand.

He moved away from her. "Forgive me, but I do not understand you."

"You're having an affair with my husband!"

"You and Jake are divorced now."

"Yes! Because of _you_, we are!"

In her arms, Jenny was squirming. "Mommy, don't yell at de'ab."

But Salene had turned away. In all honesty, he could not deny that accusation of Sarah's, either. Jake had divorced her because of him. There were other factors, certainly, but in the end, what he had once been to Jake had stood like a shadow behind everything.

He could hear Sarah speaking to Jenny to calm her. "You and Mommy are going to take a trip, go live on a big space station that Mommy helped design."

"With Daddy?"

"No, not with Daddy." Sarah's footsteps retreated into Jenny's room, then came the sound of packing: drawers opened, items slammed into Jenny's carry-cases. Everything would not fit, he knew. "Jenny, where are you going?" Sarah snapped.

"To talk to de'ab."

"Stay here."

"Don't wanna."

"Jennifer Gwendolyn! I said stay here!" The door hissed shut and he could hear the child protesting behind it. He stood staring out over the balcony rail at the courtyard garden below. Dim panic unfolded petals low in his abdomen. He should do something, but what? Sarah was Jenny's mother; he had no legal right to stop her from taking her daughter. _Where was Jake_?

Nine minutes later, the bedroom door opened again and Sarah emerged with two bags slung over her shoulders, case in one hand, a protesting Jenny pulled along by the other. "We're leaving," she said unnecessarily. "Tell Jake that everything about Jenny's custody is going to be re-thought now. He might get visiting rights, but I'll be damned if I let him bring her anywhere near you. It's bad enough that he's been having an affair behind my back for God knows how long, but that he exposed Jenny to it by setting up house with you, even let her be babysat by a man who's in and out of mental institutions...! What he does with you is his business, but I won't let our daughter be any part of it!"

Salene had no idea how to respond to that, so he said nothing. Sarah glanced down at Jenny, who had collapsed at her feet in an effort to keep from being dragged any further; she hung limply in her mother's grip. "Get up," Sarah snapped.

"No!"

"Get up this minute!"

"NononoNO!" Jenny yelled. Sarah looked ready to spank her out of frustration.

"Jenny Gwen, go with your mother," he said. She shut up and stared at him. "Go," he said again, more gently. He did not want Sarah to take out on Jenny her anger at Jake, and him.

"But you're not coming!" Jenny said.

"No, I cannot come," he answered.

"No fair!" She jerked on her arm but Sarah had it fast.

"Sometimes life is not fair," he told her. "I am sorry."

Jenny was past listening; she was screaming her lungs out. Sarah looked ready to scream herself. She put the case down and picked up Jenny to carry her—still screaming protests—to the door.

"I'll be back for the case," she called.

"Do you wish me to carry it down for you?"

"No! I don't want anything from you! Put it outside and I'll come back for it. I don't ever want to see you again!" The door slid shut behind her, muffling the sound of Jenny wailing as her mother carried her away. After a moment, he forced himself to move, to lift the case and set it outside the door. He could scarcely hear Jenny now. The silence fell on him, numbing.

Where was Jake?

He let the door slide shut, turned dumbly and looked into the kitchen. Jenny's uneaten lunch, cut into neat triangles, still sat on the table. Seeing it, he collapsed in the open doorway between foyer and kitchen, back against the arch, knees bent, arms resting on them. He stared at the floor, at the geometric tumble of tiny colored tiles, until the colors blurred. He felt a sting in his eyes, wiped at them, then stared at his wet fingers.

Sudden anger burned away tears and numbness both. He was not going to give in to the despair this time. If he gave in, he would lose his daughter, and in that moment, he felt it fiercely that she _was_ his daughter. Not by blood perhaps, but by choice; as his mother had said, sometimes parents and children chose each other.

Pushing himself to his feet, he bent his head a moment, thinking. He had no idea where Jake was, and had not thought to ask Sarah where she was going, if she would even have told him. Solymi would have a better chance of locating Sarah Fernandez than he would, and a far better chance of convincing her not to depart the planet until he—and Jake—could speak with her again.

Going into his practice room, he sat down at his desk and placed a call to his brother, explained what had occurred and what he wished Solymi to do.

"Find Jake's former wife and bring her to my office?" Solymi asked.

"Or at least prevent her from leaving Vulcan. I doubt that she has immediate ship reservations off-planet. She had no luggage with her and therefore, must have a room somewhere in the city. As a doctor, you can locate her more easily than I could."

Solymi frowned. "To do so would be a misuse of my professional status for personal reasons."

"Would it? I may be your brother, but I am also your patient. What effect on my mental health do you think losing my daughter would have?"

Solymi's frown did not entirely disappear. "You appear perfectly rational at the moment. But—" he went on before Salene could reply, "I shall see what I can do. In the meantime, where will you be? Trying to locate Jake?"

"No. I shall leave a message for Jake, telling him to contact you." He paused, then explained, "I intend to confront Saserna." And he flicked off the comm before Solymi could protest.

***

It was the hardest walk he had ever made, from the tram station to his father's shop. He made it by sheer force of will, noticing little on the way, numb to the world around. As usual, the workshop was busy, but although his nephew Sarroni was there, Saserna himself did not appear to be in the main studio. Fortunate. Perhaps it would allow them to avoid a public confrontation.

"Where is my brother?" he asked old T'Shar, cousin to his father's mother. She glanced up at him, eyes wide—surprise at his arrival or his request?—then nodded towards one of the back rooms that contained the laser-saws. "My thanks," he replied, headed back there. A memory of the childhood awe in which he had once held his brother turned his knees weak and tightened his abdomen but he ignored it, propelled by something more compelling than mere discipline. He wanted his child back.

Shoving open the swinging door, he found his father and brother at the computer. They appeared to be analyzing the density of a new shipment of woods. Saserna's jaw tightened. "I shall leave you." And he headed for the exit.

"It is you that I came to see," Salene said, blocking his way.

"I have nothing to say to you."

"Ah, but I have something to say to you."

"I do not wish to hear it."

"I am not giving you a choice in the matter—"

"Enough," their father interrupted, glancing from one to the other. He ran a hand through the bronze-blond hair he had bequeathed none of his sons. "Take it upstairs to the private residence."

Saserna glared. "I said I have nothing—"

"Take it upstairs."

Saserna turned on his heel and headed out the door, over to the staircase. Salene followed. Their father did not. Their footsteps on the wooden stairs were heavy.

Upstairs, they faced off in one of the guest rooms, the same one in which Jake and Salene had stayed after they had first arrived. "Now," Saserna said, turning to face Salene, fists on hips, "what do you have to say?"

For the first time in his life, Salene did not find his brother's posture intimidating. He found it childish. Moving forward, he used his height against Saserna, who actually took a step away from him. It was heady, freeing.

"Once, I believed your disapproval of me to be rooted in your beliefs and your traditionalism. I could honor that, even if I disagreed with it. Not everyone interprets Surak's tenets in the same way. Now I see your motive for what it truly is: petty malice." From Vulcan to Vulcan, it was a profound insult; from brother to brother, it was an unforgivable one. The tell-tale bronze flush of fury touched Saserna's neck, cheeks, eartips. "You will explain that remark."

"I had planned to. You sent an unsolicited message to Jake's former wife, Sarah Fernandez, on the subject of my mental condition—a message which deliberately misled her into an unfounded fear for her daughter's safety. It must have taken no little effort or expense on your part to find her present location in order to do so, and it seems that it was not enough for you simply to refuse your one-time promise of providing me with a child to adopt. You also set yourself the task of separating me from Jake's child, as well. I can see no _logical_ reason for such an action on your part. Only an emotional one: malice."

The bronze tinge deepened in Saserna's face. "I told her what I believed she needed to know for her child's safety. You have no business raising children, Salene. I said that before."

"Ah! Prejudice parading as ethics. You nobly decide what is right not only for your family but for others' as well. It was not your _affair_, Saserna. Jenny is Jake's daughter—not yours. It was for Jake to tell Sarah, not for you."

"Then why had he not told her yet?"

"Perhaps because he had not had opportunity to do so in person. You have interfered—uninvited—in someone else's private affairs, and acted without having all the data. That is irresponsible."

"She seemed grateful for my uninvited 'interference.'"

"No doubt due to the manner in which you shaded your revelations. The fact of the matter is that you know very little about human psychology, Saserna, and even less about Sarah Fernandez and her relationship with Jake Sisko. You have done untold harm with your attempt to be 'ethical.'"

"I simply told the truth."

"You did not tell the truth. You told half-truths, and it is that which I say stems from malice, not from ethics. You are not concerned with ethics. You are concerned only with destroying my reputation."

"You seem quite capable of destroying your reputation without help from me. You have spent the entire last year doing so. Since your return, the crafter's quarter has spoken of little else but your living arrangements with the human."

"Hyperbole. The neighbors may gossip, but I suspect that _you_ are the one who is able to speak, and think, of little else. You have a petty mind. You would have destroyed my career if you could, but found you could not. Was it learning that I would be performing at the Rain Festival which decided you on the course of destroying my family instead?"

His brother's eyes narrowed and Salene knew that his accusation about the festival had struck close to the truth. "As you just pointed out to me," Saserna said, "the child belongs to Jake Sisko and Sarah Fernandez. She is your family no more than she is mine."

"You may not wish to acknowledge it, but I call Jake Sisko t'hy'la, and the child calls me de'ab. They are my family."

"Not by Vulcan law."

"No, not by Vulcan law. And I have not tried to make them so, by Vulcan law. Yet you know as well as I that what is legal does not necessarily reflect what is right, or true. Jake is my partner and Jenny is my daughter, and you will not succeed in taking her away from me out of some misbegotten notion of what you consider to be 'ethical' unless you wish to cast yourself as the voice of the All—something not even Surak pretended to. You are not a god, Saserna."

"That, I never claimed."

Salene ignored the interruption, went on, "Nor am I immoral, or mad, or incapable of being a father even if I am incapable of begetting children. But like you or any other Vulcan, I do need companionship to stay sane. The only difference between you and me in that respect is that I look for it in a man and you in a woman. If you cannot accept that, then you cannot, but cease meddling in my life!"

Salene was breathing hard. He had never before said these things to Saserna, had never dared to defend himself to the brother he had once idolized—had not, in fact, believed much of it himself until recently. He had been ashamed of his attachments. Today, he was tired of being ashamed.

Saserna seemed torn between astonishment and outright anger over Salene's outburst. "So. You accuse me of malice and hubris both in one afternoon simply because I cannot approve of your behavior. But I do not approve, Salene, and I never will. That does not mean I bear you malice."

"Then demonstrate it. Tell Sarah Fernandez the truth."

"I told her the—"

"You told her only part of the truth. You told her that you consider me mentally unstable. You did not tell her _why_. Nor did you tell her that our other brother—who is a licensed psychiatrist—disagrees with you."

"I did not tell her that because I believe Solymi to be quite mistaken in this matter. He has let his emotional attachment to you interfere with his judgment."

"And you never permit emotions to cloud yours?"

"No, I do not."

"That, I do not believe. Your judgment is far more clouded than Solymi's, since you have presumed to present as a fact what is only your opinion of my mental health, your _layman's_ opinion, no less. If not outright hubris, that would certainly reflect a lack of objectivity. If you would show that you bear me no malice, then explain your convictions in full to Sarah in the presence of Solymi and myself, so that we might present our own points of view as well. That is fair, is it not? I have asked for no recantation on your part, only that you be completely honest. If you are convinced that your opinion is correct, then there is no need to silence ours, is there? The truth of the matter should be evident to Sarah Fernandez."

"But will Sarah Fernandez be able to recognize that truth?"

"How patronizing. Or perhaps you are simply afraid that your truth will prove to be subjective, not ultimate?"

"The truth is the truth, Salene."

"Then let her hear both our truths, and decide for herself which of them she accepts."


	10. X

Jake heard the story, or most of it, from Ismene.

He had returned to their flat to find the place empty and on the message board, a note from Salene to call Solymi's office for an explanation. Fearing that Salene had collapsed again, he called, only to hear that Solymi was out—collecting Sarah, he found out later—and Jake should contact Ismene instead. Ismene, at least, was available. She assured him that Salene was well, Jenny was well, but there had been an emergency and could he come down to the school? Vulcans, he had learned, very much disliked discussing the personal by comm if it could be avoided.

By the time he arrived, she had arranged a temporary replacement for herself and took him by flitter into the old city to Solymi's office, explaining matters on the way. The more he heard, the angrier he got. "Where does she get off," he yelled finally, "thinking she can just swoop in and take my daughter?"

"You were not present, and Salene had no legal right to prevent her."

Jake made a cutting motion with his hand. "I don't blame Salene. But Sarah can't just take off with Jenny. We may have joint custody, but Jenny was in my care by mutual agreement and Sarah would've had to get a court injunction to overturn that without my consent. If she'd taken her off planet without my permission, it would've amounted to kidnapping!"

"I doubt she was thinking of legalities," Ismene replied dryly.

Jake snorted, then said, "And Salene went to talk to Saserna _alone_? What the hell does he expect that to accomplish?"

"I do not know. He did not say. Let us hope first that he-who-will-be-my-husband has succeeded in finding your former wife and your daughter. Without that, none of the rest will matter." She settled the flitter down into the roof lot and cut the engine.

Solymi had found Sarah, all right. Jake could hear her all the way in the outer office waiting room. Her voice—especially in "strident" mode—carried as well as Major Kira's. In fact, there were similarities between the two beyond just voices. He had never noticed before, and wondered if his long-ago crush on Kira had subconsciously influenced his wrongheaded decision to marry Sarah. The great irony of that lay in the fact that Kira Nerys had taken a profound dislike to Sarah Fernandez at their one and only meeting on DS9, not long after Jenny was born. Kira had told Jake's father later, "I don't see what Jake sees in her." At the moment, neither did Jake himself.

Setting his shoulders, he opened the door between the waiting room and office, nodded to the office administrator (Vulcan for "secretary") and was nearly bowled over by a small figure that flung herself at him bodily. Jenny. He caught her in his arms and held her tight. She had clasped him with arms and legs both, face buried in his shoulder. Sitting down in one of the chairs behind the desk, he rocked her, grateful just to have the moment. The administrator returned to his work; Ismene stood to one side, waiting. In the distance, Jake could hear the rise and fall of Sarah's voice. "How long has she been here?" he asked the administrator.

"They arrived seven minutes before yourselves."

"Where's de'ab?" Jenny whispered to Jake.

He lowered his head and whispered back, "He went to talk to someone. I think he'll be along soon." She nodded but her hold on him did not relax any. "Can you let Daddy go so he can go talk to Mommy? Can you stay with Ms. Ismene? I promise I'll see you again after." And Sarah couldn't do a damn thing to prevent it.

Jenny thought about this, raised her face to his. "All right." She kissed him and let go, slid off his lap and permitted Ismene to lead her away by the hand.

"I shall take her back to the school," Ismene said. "You may pick her up there, or at our apartment, later."

Jake nodded. "And Ismene, she's to be released to no one except myself or Salene." He glanced at the administrator, who was listening to everything with great curiosity. "You heard that; you witness it. Jenny is currently in my custody, not in her mother's. Sarah may not pick her up unless I'm there to say she can, or she has a sealed court order."

The man nodded. "I so witness." Jake could just imagine him thinking, Barbarians, to fight over a child. The hell of it was that he and Sarah had sworn they wouldn't fight over Jenny. Turning, he headed down the short hall to confront his ex-wife.

This close, he could hear her words clearly even through the door. "How can you say that? They were having an affair behind my back!"

Jake entered. "We were not." Sarah swung around, face an almost comical mixture of surprise and aristocratic irritation.

Solymi was leaning against his desk, arms and ankles crossed. He appeared perfectly calm and Jake envied him that control. He took advantage of the pause Jake's arrival made in Sarah's tirade to say, "It is quite impossible that my brother and your former husband were conducting an affair. For one thing, Salene had not been off of Vulcan for two years prior to his recent trip to Earth; he has not been well enough. For another, had they somehow managed a long-distance affair, I assure you, I would have been aware of it. Part of his treatment included regular mind-melds and other forms of mind-touch. He could not have kept such a secret from me. He and your former husband had neither seen one another nor been in contact of any kind for eleven years."

"It's true, Sarah," Jake added, somewhat unnecessarily. She was not likely to believe him.

Cornered between them, she had hunched her shoulders, arms crossed over her breasts. The three gold bangles on her wrist shone in the light from a desk lamp. Turning to him, she asked the question that must have been foremost in her mind. "Why didn't you ever just tell me you were gay? I can't understand why you would've kept it a secret. I feel so _stupid_!"

"You're not stupid." Jake looked over his shoulder for a spare chair, sat down and clasped his hands between his knees. "And I'm not gay. What I have with Salene is unique. I've never been attracted to any man except him. Don't ask me to explain it—I can't."

She threw up her hands. "What does he have that I don't?"

Jake sighed and rubbed his eyes. "I don't know. I told you, I can't explain it." He looked up at her again. "I'm sorry."

Making an apology felt meaningless; words couldn't begin to assuage her pain, but somehow, they seemed to calm her. "So there was never an affair?"

"There was no affair."

"Then why did you dedicate that book to him?"

"Because he helped me with it, a long time ago. And because my marriage to you was falling apart, and because I loved him once. He left me eleven years ago, Sarah. I never expected to see him again, not really. But I dedicated the book to him for the same reason people bet on tongo. You were long gone to Deep Space Seventeen before he showed up in Bellefonte."

"And if he hadn't, we might have been able to fix things!"

"I doubt it. We're too different." He did not add, We should never have gotten married in the first place. She didn't need to be told she had been a mistake from the beginning. "In fact, when you called and asked for marriage counseling, _he_ argued that I should at least give it a try. He never attempted to take me from you. I'm the one who knew it wouldn't work."

She had turned away from him and Solymi both; he thought she might be weeping, but was not sure. Sarah rarely showed weakness before others and for all that Solymi had been silent, he was still there. Jake waited but before she could turn back, he heard feet in the hall beyond, then a scratch on the door, Vulcan style.

"Come," Solymi called.

The door swished open and Salene entered, followed by another, older man who had to be Saserna. Jake knew it the same way he had known Solymi when he had shown up on Jake's doorstep in Bellefonte. Three peas in a pod, indeed. If anything, Salene looked even more like his elder brother than his younger. Saserna was taller and more solid, lacking Solymi's slightness, and like Salene, he was large in the chest: vocal training, probably. He wasn't as handsome as the younger two, but perhaps that was merely a function of his sour expression. He had all the classic pinched-mouth disapproval which Jake had associated with Vulcans before meeting Salene.

Solymi had stood up straight, uncrossing both arms and ankles; his eyebrows had disappeared under his bangs: astonishment. Whatever he had expected from Salene, it was not this. Jake glanced at Sarah. She had turned back around and any trace of tears which might have given her away were already erased. She glared at both new-comers.

Salene wasted no words. He turned to Saserna, said only, "Tell her. The whole truth."

Saserna glanced over once; his eyebrow flickered and he gave a little bow. Jake knew now where Salene had gotten that gesture, but from Saserna, it was mocking, not respectful. Jake would have given his eye-teeth to know what had transpired between those two, and Salene would probably never tell him.

"Tell me what truth?" Sarah was saying. She appeared to be as much curious as angry.

Saserna flicked eyes to her, ran them down her length, over the tight-fitting blue drafter's jumpsuit which Jake had always admired, then returned to her face. His cheek twitched and Jake had a sudden insight: Saserna was one of those Vulcan men who didn't approve of the freedoms of human women. He might never say anything—IDIC prevented it—but he didn't approve. He probably insisted that his wife walk exactly three steps behind him and never speak to other men without his permission when he was in the room. Jake could just imagine what Sarah would say to _that_.

Rather than answering her immediately, Saserna took a chair and folded his hands in his lap. He seemed perfectly at ease though Jake had the clear impression that he was here under duress. Salene had not sat down; he had crossed to stand beside his younger brother, near Jake's own chair. The lines were drawn. Sarah appeared oblivious. "What truth?" she asked again.

Saserna gestured casually at Salene. "My brother insists that I explain to you why I consider him to be mentally unstable. I see little point in it, but shall indulge him." He made it sound like a favor. Jake noticed Solymi shift, just slightly, and wished he could read Vulcan body language better to know if the movement signaled nervousness or satisfaction. By contrast, Salene gave away nothing; Jake could not read him at all.

"Salene's condition, as you have no doubt been informed"—his voice was dry—"is an affective disorder. That is, it handicaps his ability to properly manage his emotions."

The irony of that, set against Salene's current perfect facial control, was obvious.

"As you must know," Saserna continued, "emotional mastery—arie'mu—is the cornerstone of Vulcan philosophy and Vulcan social order. A Vulcan who cannot control his emotions, who insists on giving evidence of them, disrupts both family and community. He should be institutionalized in order to prevent such disruptions."

"There is medication which regulates Salene's condition, Saserna." That from Solymi. "You know it."

"And here is where we disagree," Saserna said smoothly. "I say it does not entirely regulate it, not if our brother's current _behavior_ is any indication."

Solymi turned his attention to Sarah, whose face was closed, as cool as a Vulcan's. "As I explained earlier," he said, "my brother does indeed have an affective disorder and Saserna is quite correct. Such disorders, which cause a disjuntion in one's emotional stability, are particularly disturbing to Vulcans. However, most can be treated effectively by a variety of medications. Salene's condition is caused by a chemical imbalance in the serotonin levels of his brain: a biological cause. However, this imbalance produces psychological disturbances rather than physiological ones. Medication corrects the imbalance and allows him to function normally—just as on Earth, a diabetic once corrected his or her blood sugar level by regular doses of insulin. My brother's condition is presently under control."

This was the kind of language which Sarah the architectural engineer could understand: an identifiable problem with a precise solution, like a formula. Jake was glad that Solymi hadn't gone into how tricky the process could be. As he had told Jake on the trip to Vulcan, psychology was rarely simple, and Sarah understood buildings, not people. Now, she nodded, but turned back to Saserna. "And why do you say the medication hasn't corrected his condition?"

"Because of his relationship with Jake Sisko."

Sarah blinked. "What?"

"Their relationship is illogical."

She actually laughed. "I might call it something else, but logic' isn't a word I'd apply to any love affair."

Perhaps irritated by her flippant response, Saserna frowned. It cut his face into severe planes. "That may be so among humans. Among Vulcans, their relationship is considered illogical because it is infertile. There is no cause beyond the emotional for its existence, which indicates a lack of proper emotional control on Salene's part—which in turn indicates his continued mental instability."

It took her a moment to detangle the implications, then she said incredulously, "You mean you think he's unstable because he's in love with a man instead of a woman?"

Jake wanted to burst out laughing. Salene was brilliant. He could not have found a better way of convincing Sarah that Saserna's opinion of Salene was biased than to get Saserna to explain Vulcan attitudes about homosexuality. Two of her best friends were a gay couple from her department. They had a son only a little younger than Jenny. Sarah might be self-centered and jealous, but prejudiced she most definitely wasn't.

Saserna had pressed his lips together. "Salene's homosexuality may be beyond his control—a matter on which I am not entirely convinced—but indulging it is certainly a display of irrational desire. Logic"—he stressed the word—"would dictate that he remain unattached. He refuses to do so, and therefore his behavior is illogical. In light of his affective disorder, I can only see that behavior as evidence of continued mental instability."

Sarah's mouth hung open; she snapped it shut. "So you mean to tell me the only reason Vulcans marry is to have children?"

"Yes," Saserna said at the same time as Solymi's, "No." Sarah glanced from one to the other. Solymi went on, "There are other considerations only indirectly related to actual reproduction. I will not go into them."

Pon farr, Jake knew.

"The cause to which you allude does not apply in our brother's case," Saserna argued.

"Nevertheless," Solymi replied, "You cannot say that Vulcan marriage is purely for reproduction."

"But that _is_ its primary function."

Sarah was looking bemused; Salene was studying his nails. Jake had forgotten the Vulcan tendency to debate a minor detail to death. "Anyway," he said before they could get completely off the track, "if I understand things right—and I think I do—" he spoke to Sarah, not the brothers, "Vulcan society doesn't approve of same-sex attachments. So the fact that Salene lives with me is, to Saserna's mind, evidence that he's mentally disturbed." He did not explain that _any_ such attachment on Salene's part, gender aside, would have struck Saserna that way because Salene was a eunuch and from the Vulcan point of view, no longer had a need to marry. Humans could employ selective truth, too, and he knew what buttons to push with Sarah.

Her reaction was gratifyingly predictable. "How medieval!"

"It is not 'medieval,'" Saserna corrected. "It is logical. There is no _logical_ reason for Salene to marry at all, and certainly none for him to partner himself to another man."

"Once again, I must disagree," Solymi said. "There is a logical reason for Salene to take a mate, whether or not he can father children. The peculiar nature of Vulcan psychology benefits, and in some cases almost requires, the bonded state. Otherwise, infertility of any kind would be a cause for divorce and that is not the case—"

"I've heard enough!" Sarah said, raising both hands, pushed past her limit. "I don't give a damn about your logic chopping. This is absurd!"

Salene raised his head finally, spoke for the first time. "Now you see why I insisted that Saserna explain himself. His reasons for his opinion of my mental condition are Vulcan ones; I doubted that you would share them. You feared for your daughter's safety in my care, but I am no danger to her. If I thought I were, I would not have allowed Jake to leave her with me—and if I were, I doubt he would have done so, in any case. Even when ill, I am not violent. Saserna does not permit me to see my niece and nephew not because he fears for their safety, but because he does not wish them to be exposed to my particular...emotional irrationality."

Sarah looked over at Saserna to see if he would correct Salene, but he stayed silent. "So all this comes down to whether or not you approve of your brother's lifestyle?" she asked.

"It is not about approval, it is about whether or not he conducts himself as befits a Vulcan. He does not."

"It looks to me like it is about approval, whatever you say." Sarah ran a hand through her pageboy, ruffling it, then sat down finally. Her attitude seemed to have taken a complete reversal where Salene was concerned; she might not be happy about Jake's relationship with him, but Saserna's attitude was altogether too alien for her. She looked at Solymi. "What do you think about it? You defend him, but I haven't heard you say anything about his relationship with Jake. Do you think it's normal?"

Solymi shifted slightly. "Define 'normal.' There is no such thing as normal. There is, rather, a range of characteristics and behaviors which are defined as more or less close to a mean. In that respect, Salene's affective orientation is atypical. But then, so is his musical talent. Whether the atypical characteristic is valued or deplored is a matter of culture. So my brother is not _normal_, no, if by that you mean does he conform to an average. He is exceptional in many respects. But if you mean to ask if I consider homosexuality a psychological aberation in need of corrective treatment—no, I do not. Neither, I might add, do most other Vulcan psychiatrists and psychologists. That the general public continues to view it so is evidence of a lack of proper education—or a lack of open-mindedness."

This last he directed at Saserna.

Saserna had clearly had enough. Standing, he tugged his tunic straight. His expression had grown even harder and more pinched. "I will not remain here to be insulted further. I have done what you asked of me, Salene; ask nothing of me ever again. From this point on, though we may share the same parents, I refuse to call you brother." He included Solymi in his glance. "Either of you. I have no brothers."

"So be it," Salene said softly, but would not look at him.

After Saserna left, the silence stretched; even Sarah was subdued as if aware that she had just witnessed an irrevocable tearing. Finally, Solymi touched Salene, very lightly, on the elbow. It seemed to pull him back from the brink of something. Both turned to Sarah, their faces expectant. "All right, all right," she said, lifting hands. Her bangles jingled. "So I jumped to conclusions."

Salene nodded to her, minutely, as if acknowledging the apology she had not quite said. Sarah might be fundamentally self-centered and given to flying off the handle, but she was not unreasonable unless she felt herself to be threatened. Jake suspected she had been far more upset by her belief that Salene had somehow seduced Jake away from her than she had been by Salene's mental condition. Sarah had been reacting, not acting, when she had taken Jenny. She did not really _want_ full custody; it would require too much commitment from her, particularly right now with a new project in the offing. In the end, it was easier for her to accept things.

Solymi glanced at a chronometer on the wall. "I should keep some of my afternoon appointments; the fewer I must reschedule, the better. I assume the crisis is past and the three of you are able to work out any details yourselves?"

"I think we'll manage," Jake said, standing and swallowing a grin. Psychiatrist or no, Solymi could still be Vulcanly blunt at times.

***

The three of them went for a walk in a nearby park: neutral territory. This was Sarah's first visit to Vulcan; she studied the gardens with their different flora, and discussed the architecture of the nearby buildings with Salene. Salene knew too much about her to find her entirely congenial—and he could sense her continued resentment of him—but at least they could speak politely to one another. When they had reached a mostly deserted area of the park, Salene turned, hands behind his back, and came to the point. "Do you still insist on taking Jenny back with you to Space Station Twenty-Seven?"

She shook her head, did not quite look at him. "No." She glanced at Jake instead. "But if you're planning to live on Vulcan, we're going to have to rethink the joint custody."

Salene replied before Jake could. "We are not planning to live here, no—though I may do so part of the time, for career reasons." Salene also glanced at Jake. "He wants a house. Here, that is impossible."

"He's always wanted a house," Sarah replied, half smiling. "It was almost the first thing he said to me after he proposed. 'I want a house,' like it was the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow."

Jake frowned. "I am standing here, y'know. I'd rather not be talked about in the third person. And what's wrong with wanting a house, for pete's sake?"

"Nothing," Salene and Sarah said at the same time. Surprised, Salene glanced at her, then added, "Jake and I are more than willing to keep Jenny while you are on the station. However, should you wish her to visit or stay with you for a time while there, that could be arranged with little difficulty."

"Salene!" Jake snapped. "I don't want her to live on a space station! Sarah knows that. So do you."

Salene bit his tongue to hide any trace of amusement. "Indeed, I know that it is a matter about which you are not entirely rational."

Sarah threw up hands as if petitioning the sky. "Finally! Somebody who agrees with me!"

Jake stopped walking, faced them both down. "I didn't like growing up on a station. I'm not going to see my daughter have to suffer it."

"Spending a few weeks with her mother is hardly 'growing up' on a station, Jake. In any case, Jenny Gwen is not you. Her experience of station life may differ. Although certainly, if she does not care for it, there is no reason to force her to return since other options are available."

Jake's expression was sour with mild betrayal. Before he could lash back, however, Salene touched his arm. "Come; we should retrieve Jenny. It is nearly time for the evening meal and I still have a rehearsal tonight." To Sarah, he said, "I hope you will join us for dinner?"

"If Jake's cooking."

"I haven't had time to start anything," Jake replied, still sullen.

"I have seen you make a meal in less than an hour before," Salene said, steering Jake subtly back across the park. "I expect you will manage."


	11. XI

Dinner was neither comfortable nor entirely uncomfortable. Even Jenny felt the ambivalence, swinging from wild chattering to a quiet watchfulness. Her mother had returned her bags to the flat and Jenny had stood watching as Sarah unpacked them, but Salene thought her still suspicious. What surprised—and gratified—him was that she appeared to want to stay with Jake and him. She was glad to see her mother, but her mother had become too much a stranger over the past year, and had acted too erratically that afternoon, for Jenny to quite trust her.

That night after Sarah had left and Salene had returned from his rehearsal, they readied Jenny for bed, then let her fall asleep with them. "We shouldn't make a habit of this," Jake said as she snuggled in between them, "but tonight, I want her here as much as she wants to be here."

They lay silent a while. Salene rubbed her back. Gradually her eyes fell closed and her breath became heavy, her little mouth open to help her breathe. Something currently in the air had clogged her sinuses, though why a child from pollen-rich Pennsylvania should have difficulties on Vulcan, he could not fathom. After a while, he said to Jake, "I admit, I was somewhat surprised—if gratified—by Sarah's reaction to Saserna this afternoon. I feared it would not be so simple."

"Sarah has her good points, or I'd never have married her in the first place." Jake flopped onto his back and folded his hands behind his head. "But you've heard the old adage 'opposites attract but they don't wear well'?"

"No."

Jake grinned. "Well, you have now. And it pretty much defined our marriage."

"Mmm," Salene replied. Then, changing the subject, "She's fast asleep now." Jake rolled up on an elbow to see, then carried her in to her own bed.

Thereafter, life returned to normal. The Rain Festival came and Salene sang on a stage again for the first time in almost two years. Jenny was too young to attend the full concert, but Salene's mother brought her into the hall long enough to hear his solo, then took her out again. Salene suffered no anxieties and, somewhat grudgingly, Solymi allowed that he might be ready for short tours. Personally, Salene was more concerned about the state of his voice than the stress of touring.

Shortly after the festival, Jake and Jenny left Vulcan for Earth to search for a house and, for several days, Salene moved back into his parents' home in order to be under observation should he react badly to the separation. When nothing untoward occurred, he was permitted to return to his flat and Solymi pronounced him stabilized. Yet the perfluoxetine he took every morning reminded him that his continued stability depended on chemical aid. He would live life a slave to a pink-and-yellow pill.

He received regular updates from Jake regarding the house search. Jake also had news about ANSLEM; the book had gone into a second paper printing...quite an accomplishment in this era of largely electronic media. Not that the electronic sales were hurting, either. Jake was finally beginning to see royalties—small cheques, but Salene could tell it had increased his confidence in his ability to make a career at writing. "Of course, you're only as good as your last set of sales figures," Jake would add, as if to remind himself as much as Salene not to place too much on his current success. Salene was less cynical.

Their time apart ended up to be longer than either had planned. Salene engaged a short tour and Jake had more trouble finding a suitable house than he had thought he would. Salene did not return to Earth until almost a year from the time he had first arrived. The new house was located south of the university complex rather than north, outside Boalsburg on a lane running up the side of Mount Tussey ridge. It was not far from his grandparents' residence. "In the country," Jake had said. In the country indeed. No shunt line came even close and Salene had to hire a silver cab from the transporter station. Jake would have picked him up but he had told Jake he did not know precisely when he would arrive. A partial lie—he could easily have found out—but he wished to make his way there alone for reasons he did not care to examine closely. They were sure to be illogical. Perhaps it was some peculiar re-enactment of the December previously. Or perhaps he simply preferred to approach Jake on his own terms instead of being collected like a package.

It was early evening when the flitter-cab let him out at the end of the lane: a dirt lane! He had little luggage, only a shoulder bag and his gadulka. Most of his things had already been shipped here over the past few months. He started the climb up. Once-endangered elms branched over the lane, their bare limbs pleaching together with maple and oak in a tangle above. It was snowing lightly; his boots crunched the icy lace carpeting over rocks and dirt.

He had seen the house already, inside and out; Jake had sent a number of images and a complete holo program of it before actually signing the closing papers. He had wanted to be sure Salene liked it. Salene was more concerned that Jake be content. A house was a house. As long as it had space for a garden and a room he could use for practice, Salene was not particular.

He turned a sharp leg in the lane and caught sight of it, nestled under more trees. Christmas lights blinked blue and orange, green and red along the slate roof and on the bushes beside the walk; white electric candles burned in the window. By the light of one, he could see a cat staring out. Nancy. Jake had inherited all three of the cats. He had also insisted that Salene make it back to Earth before Christmas this time. Make it home. An alien house on a cold world, but it was home.

He picked his way up the front path, reaching into a pocket of his robe for the key card Jake had sent. He unlocked the door.

***

The ship dropped out of warp half an AU off DS9. Jake could not see the station clearly, though, because Jenny had plastered herself against the viewport. "That's it?" She was so excited, she squirmed all over his lap, heels digging into tender places. If she wasn't careful, she'd never have siblings. Of course, that wasn't likely in any case. He glanced at Salene in the seat beside his. His partner was trying to work on something—a composition probably; Salene had finally begun the writing he had always wanted to do—but Jenny kept inadvertently kicking his PADD. His lips had gone thin in the way Jake knew meant he was about to lose his temper, though he'd never call it that.

"The first time I saw the station," he said to Salene, "I thought it was ugly as all get out. It looked like some kind of weird crab."

"And now?" Salene asked without looking up.

"Cardassian architecture grows on you."

Salene flipped the PADD closed and eyed him.

"The wormhole!" Jenny crowed. Jake could see no more than a flash of blue past her braids. Salene had leaned forward a little, trying to see himself. Jake remembered his fascination with the phenomenon. The wormhole was why he had come to DS9 in the first place, thirteen years ago. Whimsically, Jake supposed he owed the celestial prophets. They'd brought Salene to him, though it had been one hell of a strange ride since. He wondered what Kira Nerys would say to that.

"There'll be plenty of time to see it," he told Salene.

"Yes."

The station was busy and docking took a while. Impatient, Jenny crawled from one lap to the other, asking how much longer?, and could she have a mint?, and she had to go to the potty _right now_. Jake was glad he had put training pants on her even though she had protested at the time that she was almost five and a Big Girl now.

"You must wait," Salene told her.

"But I gotta _go_."

"I took you half an hour ago," Jake said.

"I know, but I gotta _go_."

It went on like that for a bit until she finally gave up—or used the pants. He'd check when they debarked.

As it turned out, checking Jenny's pants wasn't immediately possible. Jake had expected his father, if he could get away, and Kassidy. He had not expected a mob. It seemed that everyone who could find an excuse had shown up dockside; Jake wondered if they had come to greet him, to see the station captain's granddaughter, or to get a look at Salene. His father and Kassidy were there, of course, and Jenny made a beeline for "Grandpa!" But so were Keiko O'Brien, Molly and Kirayoshi. It was ironic that Molly had the Irish name but Yoshi the Irish body build. Except for dark hair and almond eyes, he looked a lot like his father; he also looked as if he had been dragged here at phaserpoint. Jake grinned, remembering himself at twelve; mass greetings for near-strangers he hadn't seen in years had not been his idea of a good time, either. Jake almost didn't realize Molly was with them at first, as she had immediately dropped down to talk to Jenny. Well, he knew who _she'd_ come to see.

Kira was there, too; she kissed him on both cheeks in welcome, which made him blush a little and he was glad she couldn't tell. Even Quark and Odo had shown up, Odo hanging about the edges. There were other station personnel whose faces he remembered but whose names escaped him now. Everyone was more or less talking at once.

"I'll be _five_ tomorrow!" Jenny was telling Molly. "I want a pony for my birthday. We got a _big_ back yard for her to run in!"

"You'll be lucky to get a newt." Kassidy laughed and picked her up.

"When do you want her party?" Quark hissed in Jake's ear, or at Jake's shoulder-level, actually. He was trying to be conspiratorial and not succeeding well.

"I'll talk to you about it later," Jake replied.

"So this is Salene," Keiko was saying on his other side; she propelled Yoshi forward. "My son plays cello. My husband's cello, actually. Miles thinks Yoshi has real talent and was hoping you might have time to hear him and give us your opinion as to whether we should try to send him to a conservatory." And now Jake knew who Keiko had come to see.

"I would be pleased to do so," Salene told her.

Things went on in similar vein until his father, acting with the privilege of command, finally commandeered them for lunch. By that point, Jenny had definitely wet her pants.

***

Jenny's party fell late the next day: a madhouse celebration at her grandparents' with too many gifts from too many people, present and absent both. Even Dax and Worf had sent something all the way from the Klingon empire: a very delicate piece of silver mail made for a girlchild, complete with plastic knives in holders and a plastic batleth. Dax must have been laughing her head off when she'd wrapped that. Salene the pacifist was horrified, though he hid it well; Jenny, of course, was delighted and played Warrior Princess for the rest of the evening. She got her newt, too—from Rom and Leeta, of all people. It was in a tank of unbreakable glass.

Three other events from that visit stood out later in Jake's mind. The first was more or less expected: a conversation with his father.

He had told his father about Salene some time ago. They still talked, even with lightyears between. The elder Sisko had helped him through the first weeks after Sarah had left, and there had been no recriminations for the separation. Jake had told him, too, about Salene's initial arrival on Earth, and later, had written a long letter from Vulcan, explaining their new living arrangements. His father had accepted it all fairly phlegmatically, had not even seemed particularly surprised, but Jake had known he was storing up his questions to ask in person.

They had gone for a walk along the promenade. Usually when his father appeared publicly, station people would stop him for a piece of the captain's time, or Bajorans would ask shyly for a blessing from the Emissary. Today, seeing him with his visiting son, they left the two of them in peace. Jake was relieved.

"I really have only one question," his father said after a while. "Are you happy, Jake?"

Jake smiled to himself. "Yes."

They walked a bit further in silence, Jake waiting for his father to work around to what he really wanted to ask.

"I mean," Sisko said finally, "are you _completely_ happy. I like Salene, make no mistake. I've always like him. But—" His father tried to shape the idea with his hands. "There's a _physical_ side to marriage. Marriage is more than just the physical, of course—I tried to impress that on you—but sex does matter. Salene's a eunuch. I'm not asking you to tell me what the two of you do in private; that's your business. Just...are you satisfied?"

Reaching out, grinning, Jake wrapped an arm around his father's shoulders. "Yeah, Dad. I'm satisfied. Really."

The elder Sisko nodded. "Then that's all I needed to know."

***

The second event came the evening his father and Kassidy took Jenny for the night to give he and Salene a vacation. Trying to coax romance out of a Vulcan was like trying to get milk from a rock, but Jake had a bottle of sapphire wine and was cooking a fancy dinner for them both with I'danian spice pudding for desert. After the dinner, he took Salene, what was left of the wine, a blanket and tissues up to the same upper pylon where he had first showed Salene the wormhole, years ago. Using the codes he'd wheedled out of O'Brien earlier, he temporarily blocked the turbolift, then proceeded to make love to Salene by the wormhole's light. Salene's initial comment was, "Your choice of locale is...somewhat questionable."

Jake laughed. "But is it _illogical_?"

"Mmm—not illogical, no, if one allows for sentimental motivations among humans."

"And do you allow for them?"

"It would seem that I do." He shut up after that.

***

The last event was another conversation. A few days after Jenny's party, Julian Bashir ran into Jake in Quark's. "Before you leave for Earth, could you and Salene come down to the infirmary? I'd like to talk to you both. Don't worry—" he added before Jake could ask, "it's nothing horrible, no terminal illnesses." Bashir had grinned then and walked away.

Jake worried anyway. He was a writer. His imagination was finely honed—or just 'unbridled,' as Salene put it. When Jake told Salene about Bashir's request, the Vulcan merely shrugged and said, "Then we shall find time to talk with him."

"Aren't you worried?"

"About what?"

"About what he's going to say! Has he found out something bad about Dad's health? About Kassidy's? I mean, it could be anything—" "Exactly. It could be anything, and as neither of us has any idea what it is, unbridled speculation is unproductive."

Salene was right, but by the time Jake managed to schedule an appointment to meet with the good doctor, he had worried himself into a chronic headache anyway. Salene was unsympathetic, which made Jake grumpy. They did not arrive at the infirmary on the best of terms.

Bashir called them into his office, grinning widely, but the grin disappeared as soon as he sensed the tension. "What is it?" Jake asked almost as soon as Bashir shut the door. "Is something wrong with my father? With Kassidy?"

"Have a seat first, please."

Bashir walked around behind his desk, neatening it up while Jake and Salene took the pair of chairs in front. Jake had clenched his hands on the chair arms. Bashir noticed. The grin returned, but at a lower wattage. "Jake, really. I've no bad news for you. Good news, I hope."

Then he turned serious, sat down and leaned over the desk to tap at the top with his fingers, frowning thoughtfully. "Before I begin, let me say to Salene"—he glanced at the Vulcan—"that if I should inadvertently offend or step on any cultural taboos, chalk it up to ignorance, not malice, please."

So, Doctor Bashir had learned a little tact in the intervening years. Jake grinned. He suddenly felt less tense.

Salene's eyebrow had gone up. "There is no offense given where none is taken. Please proceed."

Bashir nodded. "At your daughter's party, I overheard Jake make a comment to his father about Jenny being the only grandchild he was likely to get. At the time, I assumed it was a choice you both had made for personal reasons, but later, it occurred to me you might not be _aware_ that that doesn't have to be the case."

Jake felt his breath stop. Beside him, Salene sat very, very still.

Bashir went on, still nervously drawing invisible designs on his desktop and talking in his rapid-fire, precise speech. "It would be a somewhat complex process to produce a viable embryo from both of you, but not a particularly difficult one. In fact, the technology to do so has been around for over two hundred years." He glanced up again to judge how his words were being received. Salene's expression was completely blank; Jake wished he knew what his friend thought.

"How would you do it?" Jake asked.

Given the encouragement of a question, Bashir sat up a little straighter. "Well, the first step would be to take a DNA sample from Salene and activate it, eventually creating—more or less from scratch—a meiotic cell: a gamete.

"That solves the main hurdle. The rest is relatively routine for same-sex couples. We'd replace a loaned egg cell's genetic data with that from one of you. If you were both human, or both Vulcan, we'd let nature take its course then, albeit in a test-tube. But in this case, I'll have to help it along by engineering the haploid chromosomes to produce a viable hybrid. As Vulcan-human mixes have been in existence for some time, though, there's plenty of precedent. After, it would be your job to find someone to carry the fetus to term for you." He grinned, visibly pleased with himself. "Nine months, and voila! Another grandchild for the captain."

Jake became aware that Salene was gripping the arms of his chair so hard that his knuckles were white. He'd lost color, too, like he might faint right there.

"Doctor, could we have a minute?" Jake asked. Bashir glanced at Salene, nodded, and went out.

Jake turned to Salene. "Are you all right? Do you want me to tell him to forget it?"

"No. No, I— No." He was silent a while. Jake let him be. Finally, he said, "To my knowledge, this has never been done for chi`pain. But surely the possibility has been known. Why was I never told?" His voice was not angry. It was hurt. "Solymi never said anything of this to me. He must have known."

"Maybe he didn't. His specialty's psychiatry."

"He is still a healer!"

"Salene." Jake took his hand, squeezed. "He may not have known. Doctors can't keep track of every specialty, and Starfleet doctors are exposed to a lot of unusual things a regular doctor isn't. For that matter, sometimes I think Bashir makes a career of the unusual."

Eyes unfocused, Salene stared off at a wall. Jake squeezed the hand again. "Are you listening to me?"

"I am listening."

"All right then. Yeah, somebody on Vulcan probably should have figured this out before and offered the opportunity to chi`pain—but don't assume your brother has been deliberately keeping you in the dark. He's gone to bat for your before."

"I am aware of that."

Another silence, then Jake asked, "Shall I get Bashir, or do you want to hear any more right now? We could go talk this over by ourselves then come back later."

"I wish to hear." Then, suddenly intense, "I want this." Jake didn't miss the use of 'want.' He rose, but Salene's grip on his hand stopped him; he looked down. Salene's magician eyes were deep. "Jenny will be no less my child."

"I know."

Salene let him go. He opened the door. Bashir was leaning against the wall outside, waiting. "Tell us what we have to do," Jake said.


	12. Epilogue

(five years later)

Four generations of Siskos occupied the kitchen of the Friends' School. They ranged in age and color. The eldest was the darkest. He sat on a stool off to one side, cane against his legs, giving orders to his offspring like a sergeant to his troops. The youngest and lightest stood on a stool between father and grandfather, less help than nuisance. He had three fingers stuck in his mouth while he watched his grandfather rapidly slice the green pepper.

"The Sisko men always cook," his grandfather told him.

He looked up, took out the fingers long enough to say solemnly, "Me, too."

"Of course. You're a Sisko."

No one remarked on the fact that he was the first Sisko who would bleed green on the cutting board if he sliced his finger.

Someone grabbed Salene's arm and hung on it, diverting his attention. It was Jenny. "Saba!" she nearly shouted, all excitement. "Aleta and I are ready to take Seitu to the pony rides."

"In a moment," he told her. "He is with your grandfather just now." She let him go to dance back a step and join her friend. They twirled each other around on the floor of the school cafeteria, all long limbs and swirling hair, too full of energy to stand themselves. He returned his attention to the bake sale, spread out on the long counter which fronted the kitchen area, and tried to ignore the chaos in the kitchen behind. Cooks—more than just the Siskos—prepared food for the lunch stands. The stands did not open for another hour, but they had been cooking all morning.

This was the school's "Family Fun Fair," an annual event which Salene had found to be rather more work than 'fun,' by any definition. But it raised additional funds for the school—quite successfully—and so justified its continued existence, year-in, year-out. Salene and Jake had been volunteering since Jenny had first been enrolled in the preschool. In fact, the "Sisko Special" had become traditional fare at the lunch booths, and Joseph Sisko had been beaming in from New Orleans for the weekend in order to oversee its creation ever since their first Fun Fair when Jenny was five: four years now. This year, Jake's father was visiting, as well.

The bake sale was busy at the moment, people looking for a late morning snack. Humans ate even when they were not hungry, Salene had learned. His function here was largely to oversee, not deal directly with the public. There were other volunteers to do that. Most humans found him somewhat intimidating, aliens being uncommon in central Pennsylvania even here in the shadow of a major university center of the Americas. This was not San Francisco, or Paris; the people were parochial and Vulcans did not share Terran body language or facial expressions. Even Jenny's friends were wary of him. He had become accustomed to being misunderstood, was concerned at times that Seitu would face the same as he grew older.

His son had become bored with the cooking and now climbed down from the stool to eel his way out of the kitchen crowd over to Salene's side. Wordlessly, he tugged on Salene's tunic and Salene bent to pick him up, absently smooth the loose curls which never needed moisturizer, unlike Jenny's. That fine black hair was his genetic gift to his son, along with the eyes and more obvious racial characteristics. His miracle child. But otherwise, he saw more of Jake in Seitu. The boy had Jake's nose and chin and basic facial shape, and the skin was creamed coffee, only a shade lighter than Jake's own. Even his name was not Vulcan, though it had been chosen because it could be. Seitu was East African, meaning "artist." Jake's cousin Jillian Odowu—who had carried Seitu to term—had suggested it.

"Jenny Gwen," he called. She came, dragging Aleta after by the wrist. "You may take him now."

Accepting her brother, she balanced him on her hip. "Ready to go ride the ponies?" He nodded, stuck his fingers in his mouth again. Jenny pulled them out— "Don't suck your fingers, doofus"—and bounced him in her arms. She held him easily; she was a big girl, like her father. Already she loomed over most of her class and Salene feared puberty would come to her early. He wondered how Jake would handle that, and whether it might not be advantageous at that point for her to spend a year with Sarah in space. As Jake had long ago predicted, once Sarah had begun taking on-station projects, she had continued to do so. Jenny lived with Jake and him on a more or less permanent basis. At some point after Seitu's birth, she had even begun calling him saba rather than de'ab: father, not foster-father. It was inaccurate, but he had permitted her to continue lest she feel he was somehow less her father than Seitu's. In his mind, she was no less his daughter. She was the child he had faced down his brother in order to keep. Sometimes children and parents chose each other.

Now, he pushed back long braids from her face, ran a thumb over one of the bright beads; the familiarity was an indulgence which he permitted himself. She smiled at him. "We'll be back in a little while." And she carried Seitu away, Aleta skipping along in her wake.

He sensed rather than saw Jake come up beside him. "She's getting too big."

"Do you speak metaphorically or literally?" he asked without turning. He still followed the girls and Seitu with his eyes as they stepped outside through the sliding glass doors, dodging the crowd.

"Both," Jake replied.

"It is the way of things; children grow, become adults themselves and have children of their own."

"I'd rather it didn't happen quite so fast." A pause. The noise of the fair rose and fell around them. "You know, you'll likely live to see her grandkid's grandkids. I'll be lucky just to see her grandkids."

Salene turned. "Perhaps. But that difference between us is not something on which I care to dwell, just at the moment. You are living yet, and so am I. Let the future see to itself."

"That a Vulcan proverb?"

"No. Merely an observation." He held up two fingers. Jake smiled, wrapped his hand around them.


End file.
